‘I was about 11 and selling drugs’

WHEN he was five years old, Kieran Smith watched people injecting drugs on the stairs outside his home.

“I grew up on an estate rife with it,” recalls the 19-year-old, who says falling into the same way of life was almost inevitable.

“When you live where I did, you didn’t really have a choice.”

Kieran (not his real name) is now living a much more settled life. He moved in with his girlfriend recently and has a full-time job in a kitchen.

He admits life was very different growing up.

Not long out of primary school, he came to the attention of organised crime groups in the area and was given drugs to sell.

“I was about 11 and selling drugs and being paid in cigarettes,” he says.

“But very soon we had the chance to make money from it. It started with cannabis, then we moved on to Valium and harder stuff like heroin. As I got older, things got more serious.”

Kieran adds: “I was involved with gangs, battering people, stealing cars to order, selling drugs ..... it was all about making money.

“If people didn’t pay us, we were sent to their door. It was out of control, really. But that’s what we were told to do and if we wanted money, we did it.”

Eventually, as the crimes got more serious and more violent, the police became involved. Kieran realised he needed to break away from the life he was leading.

“Really, I’ve seen it all,” he admits.

“When I was about 14, one of my friends had his face slashed as we battled with another gang.

“It shakes you up, but it was a gang fight, that’s what happens, it was all to do with drugs and money.

“I got caught by the police eventually. I didn’t get done for it, but it put the fear into me, so I started to pull away from that life.”

Soon after, Kieran was referred to the Action for Children project. He has since moved away from the area where he grew up and from the organised crime groups who controlled the area.

“I couldn’t go back there – the same people are still in control of that estate,” he says.

“It probably would have been a lot easier to stay where I was, making the money I was, but it was made through violence and drugs. That’s my old life and I’m glad it’s not the life I have now. It’s not the future I want for my family.”

ANN FOTHERINGHAM