EXCLUSIVE: County lines "Parents can't stop it. No one can"
We've spoken exclusively to a teenager caught up in county lines drug dealing
Last updated 2nd Nov 2021
It is estimated that there are 47 county lines running in Harrogate district alone, controlled by violent drug gangs.
Hundreds of vulnerable teenagers and young people are coerced and groomed into moving substances like heroin and crack cocaine for miles every week.
Gangs target people out on the street or from deprive backgrounds and glamorise the idea of drug dealing by offering expensive gifts and large amounts of money.
But they face dangerous situations almost every day with the threat of being attacked by rival gangs; most carry weapons for protection.
In the second instalment of Greatest Hits Radio Harrogate and the Yorkshire Dales' county lines special, we've spoken to a teenager still participating in drug dealing.
*All names have been changed for the speaker's protection.
When Jordan* was nine-years-old his mother kicked him out leaving him to fend for himself on the street. It didn't take long for him to be wound up in criminality.
He's now 16-years-old and living in sheltered accommodation, delivering drugs for gangs across Harrogate and North Yorkshire.
He said: "My mum kicked me out and then I just went and did my thing. It's not easy and I've seen people get dirtied up. You've got to be on it 24-7.
"I didn't have a choice. It was either I did that or I'm not eating. What would you do? If you're not eating for that week and you've been offered a bit of money - what are you going to do? Everyone is going to do the same thing.
"You pick it up and drop it off and get money for every time you do it. You're going to do it when you need money.
"Poverty; that's what starts it off. Parents can't stop it. No one can."
"If you get scared there's no point in getting involved" - Jordan*
Jordan* is being supported by St Giles Trust, who help vulnerable young people who are criminally exploited through gangs, serious violence and offending.
They use professionally trained staff with lived experience of the issues facing the young people they help to try and get them back on the right path.
Carl Morton, senior case worker at St Giles Trust, has been working closely with Jordan* for the last few months.
He said: "We build up a rapport with the young people and build up trust with them so instead of coming from the outside in, we come from the inside out. We're people with lived experiences similar to what the young person is going through.
"Parents may speak to the young people, the police, whoever. But at St Giles we've been through it so we say to them 'I've been there and these are the mistakes I've made. I don't want you to make the same mistakes that I did'.
"They're drawn to a lifestyle or drawn to people who are bad influences for them. This grooming could take anything from weeks, months to a year. Then they're sent on their way and before you know it they're in the system.
"It's a vicious cycle" - Carl Morton, senior case worker at St Giles Trust
"Then by the time they're arrested they're seen as a perpetrator rather than a victim and a lot of the time they don't understand that they've been groomed.
"Then they've got to continue to work because they've had the drugs taken off them and that's debt bondage to the gangs. If they don't pay them then the gangs might go to their families."