The police cannot cope with this situation

Professor Dick Hobbs

Professor Dick Hobbs, who led the study said: "We found that the police are utterly overwhelmed.

"In some cities you could have up to 30,000 people being policed by maybe a dozen police, but there would be a couple of hundred bouncers there."

He said the so-called night-time economy was running riot and seemed to be being ignored by central government.

"The police cannot cope with this situation," he said on Radio 4's Today programme.

'Out of control'

Fred Broughton, chairman of the police federation, speaking in The Independent newspaper, said the situation was out of control.

"Ten years ago we were in charge of these areas and did not tolerate people running around drunk and fighting. We arrested them."

Ten years ago we were in charge of these areas

Fred Broughton Police federation

But he said now police had to act as mediators because they could not risk arresting offenders and taking them back to the station, leaving colleagues isolated.

"There is a feeling now that the situation is out of control," he said.

Three members of the Durham University research team trained as bouncers to find out the quality of the training schemes.

Professor Hobbs said they were often inadequate.

"We found one training scheme which was training bouncers to inflict injuries," he said.

The University's research showed that the pattern of issuing large numbers of late licences to bars and clubs in the same area had resulted in a leap of violent crime by 106% in two years in one city.

There are currently more than 3,000 applications a year for new drinking licences - 38% more than in 1995.

The research is part of the government backed Violence Research Programme.

Home Office figures released on Tuesday will show there has been a 10% annual rise in violent crime.