CHILDREN as young as 10 are hitting the bottle in Merseyside.

Up to 5% of primary school pupils confessed they had nursed a hangover within the last four weeks in a Wirral Council survey.

The admissions of drunkenness were made by 10 and 11-year-olds during an exercise to gather an insight into their lives in the borough.

Last night, the findings were branded “disturbing” by child health experts, who warned children were putting themselves at risk of liver disease.

Education chiefs in Wirral said agencies were working together to tackle underage drinking, a problem they said was “very hard to police”.

A report to the Wirral Children’s Trust Board revealed 1,000 Year 6 pupils were asked to give confidential responses on a raft of issues ranging from life at school to what they do in their spare time.

The robust survey included scrutiny of drinking habits, with almost a fifth of the primary school pupils admitting they “had an alcoholic drink – a whole drink, not just a sip”.

And 5% admitted being drunk at least once “in the past four weeks”.