A city-centre food and wine shop lost its licence to sell alcohol 10 years ago, after angry parents complained about their under-18s buying it there.

The November 6, 2006 edition of the Herts Advertiser carried a front report quoting the then Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Rev Christopher Herbert, as he had also contacted police about teenagers’ drunken behaviour near his home in Abbey Mill Lane.

The City Food and Wine store in Catherine Street had its premises licence revoked by a licensing committee, despite staff saying such a move would be a “serious miscarriage of justice”.

A number of parents supplied evidence to the committee that their children had obtained alcohol from the store. One, a local teacher, found her 15-year-old son drunk on vodka.

Mourners, meanwhile, were expected to pack a Harpenden church for the funeral of sportswoman Georgie Robinson, who was killed in a road crash in South Africa.

And while Herts Police was catching more criminals, the courts were struggling to cope with the numbers.

Officers were struggling to find somewhere to put all the criminals because of a lack of cell space in police stations.