One in every 12 children under 15 who appear in court due to boozed-fuelled bad behaviour is from West Yorkshire, worrying figures have revealed.

Thirty-nine children under 15 were prosecuted in the county’s courts – out of 475 in 12 months nationally, according to figures released to Parliament.

A further 70 ten to 15-year-olds in West Yorkshire were given a police caution for drunk and disorderly charges in 2006.

But it is not only children who appear to have a problem with booze across West Yorkshire. The number of on-the-spot fines handed out to men and women across the county has more than tripled between 2004 with 1,023 to 3,830 in 2006, according to the latest figures available.

And there was an increase in people cautioned over their raucous behaviour with an increase of more than 147 per cent from 415 to 1,025.

Councillor Martin Smith, Bradford Council’s executive member for community safety, said: “There possibly is a worrying trend here and people need to stop selling alcohol so cheaply.

“There is a lot of work going on across Bradford and West Yorkshire to reduce problems around drinking and preventative measures. Currently 94.7 per cent of Bradford schools are involved in educating young people about the dangers of drinking too much.”

Anti-binge drinking campaigns have been running for two years across the city, with particular focus on under-age drinking. More initiatives are also in the pipeline, Coun Smith said.

Nationally the number of women aged 16-25 issued with penalty notices for drunken disorder almost doubled from 1,853 in 2004 to 3,561 in 2006, while the number issued to men of the same age went up by 67 per cent.

Only seven shops and pubs or clubs received maximum fine of £1,000 for selling to under 18s during the same year. And, since new laws were introduced in 2003, just two people have been prosecuted for selling alcohol to a drunken person, though only one of those was convicted.

The Government is considering putting health warnings on alcohol, banning happy hours and stopping supermarkets selling cheap drink to tackle Britain’s spiralling booze problem.

But the Conservatives, who uncovered the figures, seized on them as proof of Britain’s “broken society”.

They pledged to reverse 24-hour drinking and and ban loss-leader sales of alcohol to prevent the sale of cut-prize booze.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: “This is very disturbing research. The fact that the number of young women receiving penalty notices for disorder has doubled is an alarming symptom of our broken society.

“Conservatives would target the irresponsible retailers of alcohol who sell to underage and drunk people, as well as looking at tackling the sale of recklessly cheap alcohol.”

In England, almost 1.6 million men are considered “high risk” drinkers, downing more than 50 units of alcohol a week, and so are more than a million women, who are drinking more than 35 units a week.