A GROUP of students from University College Chester will visit a number of Chester pubs and bars next week in a campaign to warn drinkers about the dangers of spiked drinks and date-rape.

About a dozen students from the Parkgate Road campus will be out to warn people about the dangers of leaving their drinks unattended.

Students will visit places such as Brannigans in Love Street, Rosie's in Northgate Street, Loaf in Music Hall Passage and the Revolution bar in Foregate Street as part of a police-backed college awareness campaign.

They will visit the bars on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and place stick-ers on unattended drinks to show drinkers how easy it is to place drugs in their booze when they are not looking.

Although the students are not testing drinks for date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol, the volunteers aim to show how many people in Chester leave their drinks unattended when they enjoy a night out in the city.

The efforts of the students follow that of Chester campaigner Sara Hindle, from Boughton, who launched a national campaign to raise awareness of drug-rape. She fears the shocking trend has already hit Chester.

Steven Hargreaves, president of the Chester Students Union, says the college's campaign has received the backing of the bars and clubs taking part in the exercise as well as community police officers.

'With incidences of drink-spiking occurring in every part of the UK, campaign work on drug-assisted rape and drink-spiking has never been more urgent,' he said.

'Essex police recently discovered 8% of drinks in one nightclub contained traces of drugs associated with such attacks and the problem increases year by year.

'But students and members of the public in Chester need more information, as the symptoms of drink-spiking and the effects of individual drugs are often misunderstood or totally un-known.

'We will help educate students on how to minimise the risks to themselves and their friends and now, in conjunction with some local bars/clubs and community police officers, we will be able to disseminate vital information to help the awareness and protection of the community.

'We would also like to encourage bars and clubs to recognise that some door staff may require additional training to help them spot the signs and take care of their customers.'

The college students will be armed with 1,000 stickers and have chosen to visit the bars on Monday, Wednesday and Friday as they are the nights fellow students go out for a drink in the city centre.

However, they also aim to get the message across to other people who will be on a night out in Chester.

'The group will be looking to see if any bottles or drinks have been left unattended. They will then place a sticker on the drink and make the person aware of the date-rape dangers when they return to their drinks,' said Mr Hargreaves.

'The object of the exercise is to show how easy it is to put a sticker on someone's drink when it could have easily been a drug.

'All the bars taking part in next week's exercise have been very receptive and will have posters on show during next week's visits.

'The police have also been very helpful. They are pleased that an organ-isation such as the college is doing something like this.

'We will be looking to get some results from this exercise which may well show that people in Chester don't care less what happens to their drinks when they are out.

'We want to make people aware that drink-spiking can happen and how to be aware of the symptoms. It's something we want to do for the good of the community. Getting bars to buy their own drink-spiking testing equipment would be a positive step forward.'