Controversial website offers money for pictures of drunk people

Caught Drunk is setting up in towns and cities throughout the UK with rogues’ galleries, featuring shocking images revellers would rather forget.

The site offers to pay amateur photographers £50 for grubby snaps of people the worse for wear, as long as that picture proves popular.

Often the first the subjects know they have been caught on camera is when the images appear online.

The site, which includes photos of teenage boys, couples in intimate situations and women seemingly passed out in their underwear, has provoked an angry response.

But its owner Barry Carter, a former publican, defended it claiming he was developing a “fun, social experience”.

Sonia Livingstone, a professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said: “We are going to see more and more people getting their cameras out and recording each other for better and for worse.

“A case that came to my attention in the US recently was a teacher who was recorded being horrible to a pupil and the teacher was sacked.

“Sometimes people will be recording things they should not and it will be a public benefit and in others it will be a public ill.”

The Caught Drunk site has pages covering towns and cities across the UK, including Aberdeen, Elgin, Fraserburgh, Kirkaldy, Carlisle and Doncaster.

The Fraserburgh page has provoked fury for carrying a photo of 20-year-old Shaun Ritchie, who has been missing since a Halloween party last year.

Concerns were also raised about a stream of other images including one showing a young blonde woman lying in a bathroom in her underwear, and a photograph on the Aberdeen page of a partially naked man and woman seemingly passed out on a bed.

But solicitor Duncan Love, a partner with law firm James and George Collie, based in Aberdeen, said people have no legal right to complain.

“The image has been captured by the photographer and they’ve decided that’s something they want to upload.”, he said.

“There’s not a law against it.”

Last night Mr Carter defended his business venture and said he had removed many of the administrators from the various pages which did not share the “direction I wanted to go in”.

He added: “What started as a small idea has grown very quickly and now branding and copyright is in place I will spend much more of my time trying to push forward to closely monitor the pages and to develop the brand into a fun, social experience.”

Employment experts have warned recruiters often scrutinise the online presence of prospective employees to see if they’re suitable for the job.