A DEWSBURY inventor has created a bottle top which women can use to protect their drinks from being spiked in a bid to prevent drug rape.
John Blundell has come up with the tamper-proof device, which women can put over the tops of bottles, to stop would-be attackers slipping chemicals inside.
The one-use device, called Drinksafe, costs less than 5p and will be handed out free to students, clubbers and drinkers in parts of West Yorkshire.
Forty thousand of the bottle tops, which are also designed to prevent the new phenomenon of drug robbery, will be given away in the next few weeks.
Mr Blundell, of Dewsbury, said he would like to see licensees increase the price of all drinks by 5p so that each could come with a Drinksafe bottle top.
The plastic top has a cuff that fits over the bottle and allows the stopper to hang at the side while the bottle is held. If the drinker needs to leave the bottle for a moment, they can put the stopper in the neck and tighten the tamper-proof leg.
"If anybody wants to open the drink again, the leg breaks off and the drinker will know it has been tampered with," said Mr Blundell.
He hopes the invention will be adopted in towns and cities across the country and says he has the ability to produce 125,000 per week.
"There has been a lot of publicity over drug rape, but actually drug robbery is thought to be much more common," he said.
"Both of them are terrifying. People slip drugs into drinks and then mug them on the way home."
The man in charge of the alcohol strategy for Leeds, Tony Goodall, said he hoped the Drinksafe stopper would be successful.
Mr Goodall said: "Various things have been tried in the US in the past which have not been successful, but these seem very much foolproof.
"They only cost a matter of pence each and we thought parents might be interested in buying packs of them for their daughters."
