SARK officials have denied that the island is facing a growing alcohol abuse problem. Constable Jan Guy was responding to claims by Trevor Sillifant, a field officer for the Western Alcohol and Drugs Education Society.

He was reported to have said alcohol was causing concern for the authorities.

‘That’s not the case,’ said Mrs Guy.

She questioned the validity of his comments after he had visited the island just once on a day trip.

‘We have a small problem as any other small community in the UK where some people go to the pub and over-indulge. The authorities are not getting any more or less concerned than they were a week or a year ago.

‘We are doing our jobs as we need to do them.’

Mr Sillifant, whose comments came after an open meeting in Sark last weekend, said that he did not claim it was becoming an increasing problem but that it could become one.

He stood by another statement, that the island needs to deal with the issue head on before it gets out of hand.

‘That was the feeling I had,’ he said.

Mr Sillifant, a Methodist preacher, said that Sark’s authorities were concerned about the prevalence of alcohol and how youngsters were getting involved.

‘Alcohol was the big issue. There’s definitely concern there.’

He added that he was told that there were no drug problems.

‘It’s very encouraging if it’s true, but I find it very difficult to believe.’

This was Mr Sillifant’s first visit to the island.

Mrs Guy, a Sark resident for 15 years, said that he was not called to a meeting by the island’s authorities but was invited by the Methodist Church.

‘I do not feel he was in Sark long enough or in the right places to be able to make any correct comment at all.

‘He was in the island for about 24 hours. It was his first visit, he spoke to no island authorities apart from myself and the assistant constable from whom he could not have got the impression he appears to have reached.

‘I’m afraid that we were unable to learn anything helpful from the open meeting at all.

‘I don’t want people in Sark or Guernsey to get a false impression of what is happening. They could get that from his statement, which is ill-informed and inaccurate.’

She added that last month’s yobbish behaviour by day-trippers on Sark Shipping was reported accurately in the Guernsey Press and by other island media.

‘That has been well and effectively addressed by the local police presence on the island and Sark Shipping. We have had no further problem.

‘Mr Sillifant says the island needs to deal with the issue here, but we are dealing with it.’

Mr Sillifant said that this was discussed and added that the Sark authorities might well have reacted to the news report because of an existing alcohol problem.

‘I would not do the island any disservice,’ he said. ‘If I have misrepresented the situation, my comments were just based on what I heard from the islanders.’

The meeting was attended by Mr Sillifant and his wife, Mrs Guy, assistant-constable Wendy Kiernan, local Anglican vicar Graham Leworthy and Methodist minister Cedric May.