Children’s care homes ‘ripe for exploitation’ by ruthless drug gangs
CHILDREN’S care homes are ‘ripe for exploitation’ by county lines drugs gangs, a shocking new report has found.
Youngsters are being forced to smuggle heroin and crack cocaine hundreds of miles away from their homes – and are then caught in a ‘no man’s land’.
This is because police and social services in the area where they are found refuse to help as the child does not live there, the study found.
Even for those who do receive help, it takes on average a year for them to get out of a drugs gang.
The report highlighted a woeful lack of support for children caught up in the web, with only a handful of organisations offering specialist help outside London – despite thousands of children being in the clutches of gangs.
Children as young as 12 are plucked from care homes to work as drug runners, while others are used as recruiters for the gangs.
Youngsters are even picked by their ethnicity to blend in within their target area.
The report, commissioned by the Home Office, found the ‘county lines’ phenomenon – named after the phone lines used to sell and distribute drugs – is being fuelled by ‘challenges and failings in the local authority care system’.
Earlier this month, a Daily Mail investigation revealed the scale of the crisis. The Children’s Commissioner estimated that up to 50,000 children could be involved in county lines gangs.
St Giles Trust, a leading charity which has helped more children in county lines than any other voluntary sector organisation, consulted 130 victims, parents and frontline workers, including police and social services, in 20 areas for the investigation.
It concluded: ‘Poor quality and badly located children’s homes in high-risk housing areas are providing ideal conditions for county lines exploitation.’ In some instances, teenagers who are already enslaved by drugs gangs are being moved from one children’s home to another where they can recruit more youngsters.
The charity has called for the regulation and inspection of children’s homes for over- 16s. It warned many have no idea when youths go missing to sell drugs.
One community safety expert told the charity: ‘We have a high number of children’s homes in the area and we know that they are really ripe for exploitation, either with children being placed here out of the area who are already involved, or others just grooming the children in there.’
During a £80,000 pilot scheme in Kent commissioned by the Home Office, St Giles Trust helped 38 children, all of whom had been targeted after being excluded from school and a number of whom were in care.
The scheme found gangs are shifting away from using London children as runners and establishing regional ‘county hubs’.
They send children on day trips to supply drugs, which is cheaper and less likely to attract attention from the authorities. The gangs also often target youths with some form of disability.
Some 60 per cent of those in the pilot scheme suffered from conditions such as ADHD, deafness, autism or dyslexia.
Over an intensive six-month period when the charity worked with Kent Police to help child drug runners, the number of times children went missing in Dover reduced from 123 to 49.
The new report, which is the largest of its kind into the county lines phenomenon, also called on the British Transport Police to help identify child drug mules using the rail network.
It said many youngsters should be quizzed if they have no tickets and are travelling at a time when they should be in school, but private train companies do not always pass on the intelligence.
The charity also called for Ofsted to assess school exclusions because this is often the ‘trigger point’ for involvement in county lines gangs.
‘Failings in the care system’