I flooded Scotland with crack & heroin
Youth worker hopes her story can help prevent vulnerable kids turning to crime
IN THE past, Nequela Whittaker trafficked heroin from London to Scotland. Now when she travels north, she brings a tale of redemption.
In the confines of Scottish women’s prison Cornton Vale, the south London gang girl became a young woman with noble ambition.
She said: “I call that period in prison the Big T – the time I was given to reflect and recognise I had to change.
“In some ways, it was the best time of my life. It saved me. I made the decision to take the bad and turn it into something good.”
Now, Nequela, 29, wants to tour Scotland’s schools with a play based on her autobiography, Street Girl.
She hopes her story will prevent vulnerable youngsters from becoming consumed by criminality and its repercussions.
The Nequela of today is a university graduate and youth worker – and she is searingly honest in road marking her own wrong turns as a warning to others.
She said: “I became a product of my environment and young people don’t realise how easily they are drawn into the wrong crowd. What I have to say needs to be heard by young people in Scotland and beyond, to stop them from falling into crime.”
Nequela was raised in Brixton by a protective mother, who hoped to widen her daughter’s horizons with athletics, drama school and violin lessons.
Her absentee father was a “crackhead” whose family had clout in the criminal world.
Nequela said: “My mum was a wonderful women. She has been the source of my success while my dad could only be my failure.”
But her mother was also traditional Caribbean and her daughter’s bisexuality was a taboo. Nequela said: ”I didn’t feel I belonged in the world my mum was making for me. The culture was to be seen and not heard.
“I didn’t see that my mum was my everything. I thought I was a grown woman who knew better.”
In the urban badlands of south London, Nequela stood out with her neat school uniform and violin case. Bullies rounded on the little “nerdy” girl.
A sexual assault by an older boy when she was 11 fuelled an already burning outrage at the cruelty she endured. And the transformation from victim to aggressor was conscious.
She built her strength in the gym until, at 14, she was fearless and brutally assaulted her two greatest female tormentors. Nequela was charged with assault. At home, she was angelic but on the streets, she became embedded in criminality. Nequela said: “As soon as I had a criminal record, my mentality was to lengthen it. “Suddenly, the streets were awake and listening to me. I had enough of what the hood was throwing at me and I was tired of my voice not being heard. “I felt I had taken the power back but I had become savage, a horrible girl. In the dog eat dog world of south London, you either do the chewing or get spat out. I chose the former.”
She was the ringleader in two notorious girl gangs and transformed from sweet Nequela into the hardened, thuggish “Nikks”. She left home when she was only 14 and embarked on a solo drug-dealing career, revelling in her tough girl persona.
At 16, she partnered with the Jamaican mafia of the Yardies, using her family ties as clout and protection. From 2000 onwards, the Yardies flooded Britain with class A drugs and expanded into the lucrative market of Scotland, where a rock of crack fetched double London prices.
In 2008, Nequela transported large amounts of crack and heroin to the likes of Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Stirling and Dumfries on their behalf. She said: “It was more money if I did drop-offs in Scotland and I was greedy.
“Scotland was the quickest way to make money on crack and heroin if you had a smart enough operation.”
Nequela sometimes headed north three times a week, on a bus or train, with the drugs moulded to her body and hidden between layers of clothing. The routine was to call the contact, get the address, drop off the packages and pick up payment.
She said: “There are so many users in Scotland. I saw whole families on crack and heroin. It was much worse than London.
“Aberdeen was the worst. There seemed to be drugs everywhere.”
In 2007, in a series of clampdowns, including the arrests of Yardie drug lords, Grampian Police confiscated 10 times more crack cocaine than the rest of Scotland’s police forces put together.
Scotland continues to suffer from the despicable trade and is now the most drug-blighted country in Europe, with deaths up 23 per cent to 867 in 2016 – a death count 2.5 times higher than in England and 27 times higher than in Portugal.
Nequela would pick up another package for her return to London and she had her own “line” selling “pebbles” of crack in Brixton. The round trip would net her upwards of £2000.
In September 2008, when she was 17, she picked up a 57g package of crack cocaine and 57g of heroin from King’s Cross and took the train from Euston to Aberdeen. On arrival, she was met by two police officers and taken to the station on suspicion of possession. She said: “That’s
when it all went wrong. As I was taking off my stuff, drugs were just flying everywhere.”
Nequela, a cannabis user, also had 7g of weed, wedged between her toes. She was sentenced to four years in Cornton Vale. Away from London, she knew her reputation carried no weight and on her trips to Scotland, she had noted the absence of black faces.
She said: “I had heard Scotland was really racist and I was scared.”
In Cornton Vale, she found women mentally and emotionally damaged, struggling with addiction, self harm and harbouring suicidal thoughts.
Nequela said: “On my first night at dinner, it looked like zombie nation, so many young women spaced out on meds with selfinflicted slashes on their arms.
“It was an abomination and I was petrified. I didn’t lift my eyes off the table, all eyes were on me. There was only one other black woman.”
On that same night, there was a lockdown after a prisoner was scalded. Nequela was in tears and she recalled: “I dropped to the floor and said, ‘I can’t do this’.”
She was offered a call to her mother and hearing her voice was the solace she needed.
She told her to accept responsibilty, to wipe her tears, take her punishment and grab the chance to start anew.
Nequela said: “She was right. I had put myself in that situation and I just had to get on with it.
“Scotland was a fresh chance. I didn’t have to be Nikks, that girl from the streets any more. I could leave that south London bad girl behind. I dug deep and promised myself I’d never put my freedom in jeopardy again. I humbled myself and remembered the smart, decent girl I had once been.”
Nequela claims the prison was effectively run by killer Caroline McNab. She claims McNab sanctioned a drug smuggling operation where crack and heroin would be thrown into the prison gardens and picked up.
But Nequela refrained from all hard drugs. And by keeping her head down, she was quickly moved to an open wing.
While inside, she rediscovered the smart, reflective girl she had once been and the inmates called her “Wisey” because she “gave voice to those who had none”.
She was released for good behaviour after serving only a year and emerged from the prison gates determined not to return.
Nequela is glad Cornton Vale is now earmarked for demolition to make way for a more progressive approach to managing women in custody, who can often be mentally ill and more victim than perpetrator.
Back in London, she graduated with a 2:1 in applied social sciences in 2016 and now works as a youth worker and runs an advocacy service offering support to young people at risk.
With author Tim Pritchard, she wrote the book Street Girl, to deglamorise gang culture and expose its grim realities.
The play of the book has shown in London but now she is seeking funding to take it nationwide.
Nequela said: “There is a gap in the help available to young women who have been lost to the street environment I was in.
“Young people can relate to me and they can learn from my story regardless of where they live. I am proof of the possibilities of change. We can’t continue to let young girls become lost to crime.”