It is late afternoon in Bangor, North Wales, and a group of seven teenagers is wandering down to the city centre. Spared lessons because of a teacher-training day, they have have been doing what young people tend to do on a day off school — not much.
Too young to go for a pint, too old to hang around with their parents, the friends have so far visited the shops, sat in the park and talked about the football. The only unusual thing about their day is that they have to be off the streets by 9pm – or risk arrest.
Last night a curfew came into force in the centre of Bangor that bans under-16s from being in the area without an adult.
It is the first order of its kind to cover an entire city centre in the UK and has already been condemned by human rights groups who have labelled it more North Korea than North Wales — via redwolf.newsvine.com