A charity has called on the Government to do more to stop children buying alcohol, in the wake of the deaths of two North-East schoolboys.

Stuart Adams and Lee Mullis died when they were hit by a train while messing around on tracks in Darlington.

On Wednesday an inquest into their deaths revealed they had drunk the equivalent of four to five pints of lager - and were more than twice over the drink-drive limit.

Afterwards Trevor Adams, Stuart's father, led calls for an end to a culture of binge drinking among youths.

And yesterday a spokeswoman for Alcohol Concern said the Government needed to do more to ensure that the law was enforced more to stop children buying alcohol.

She said a recent Home Office campaign had found that around a third of off-licenses had sold alcohol to minors.

"This is simply unacceptable," she said. "This sad incident underlines again concerns about young people and alcohol.

"Alcohol is a mind-changing substance that can cause people to make decisions and take risks they would not normally do, and this is even more the case in young people whose bodies are less able to deal with the effects of alcohol."

Stuart and Lee died on Good Friday after scrambling up a steep embankment and climbing over a 6ft fence to get onto the tracks.

Inspector Sue Collingwood, of Darlington Police, said the force undertook test purchasing exercises to catch off-licences who sell drink to minors.

"We also work with licensees and the majority of them are responsible," she said. "They don't want to sell alcohol to youngsters and they don't want large groups of them hanging around outside their premises."

Alcohol Concern said a quarter of school-age children drink alcohol every week and under-16s drink twice as much as then did 10 years ago.

"With around a quarter of school-age children drinking alcohol in the last week, and under-16s drinking twice as much as they did 10 years ago, it is crucial that young people get the education they need about the effects and dangers of alcohol consumption and, in particular, binge-drinking. "Laws are in place to stop people buying alcohol under the age of 18, and it is important that they are enforced properly," said the spokeswoman.