The PCA wants more use of breath tests to show if suspects are drunk

The Police Complaints Authority (PCA) found alcohol was a factor in two-thirds of 60 deaths in custody.

The PCA said it was "disturbed" by police failures to prevent drink-related deaths in custody, with many officers lacking necessary training.

Severely drunk suspects should be sent to hospital instead of a cell, it said.

Vulnerable populations, particularly those with gross alcohol intoxication, are not cared for adequately PCA report

The PCA wants more use of breath tests to find out if suspects are drunk, after its report found officers had made wrong guesses in 15% of cases.

PCA chairman Sir Alastair Graham said: "It is imperative that the police service find alternatives for the safe detention for those intoxicated with alcohol and drugs."

The study examined 58 deaths in custody between January 2000 and December 2001 and found an "unacceptable variability in quality of care".

The report said: "The results presented here would suggest that vulnerable populations, particularly those with gross alcohol intoxication, are not cared for adequately in police custody."

In four cases, drunk suspects who later died were checked on less frequently than once every half-hour, as recommended in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act Code.

'Strategy failure'

The PCA praised Hertfordshire Police and the Metropolitan Police for their introduction of detoxification centres.

But the authority said it was "troubled" that concerns were only being addressed six years after they had been raised in a previous report.

"It is the failure to develop adequate national strategies to deal with police-related deaths that is most disturbing.

"Unless there are vast improvements... there is no alternative but to conclude that drunken detainees should not be taken to police stations in other than the most extreme circumstances."

The PCA is to be replaced by the new Independent Police Complaints Commission on Thursday.