Drug gangs torment city ... but not a single dealer faces justice

POLICE in a city where hundreds of children are caught up in organised crime gangs have failed to prosecute a single ‘county lines’ drug dealer, it has been revealed.

The problem is so big in Bradford that it has been awarded £1million of government funding to boost its £2.5million pot to tackle the criminal exploitation of minors.

A report earlier this month revealed that 471 children were part of or connected to 51 organised crime groups in the city, including county lines drug trafficking.

Councillors in Bradford, where child grooming for sex has been a major problem over the past few years, are now being warned that criminal gangs may pose a greater threat for the young.

Mark Griffin, of the city’s safeguarding Children Board, said it was ‘now considering the emergence of organised crime, county lines, modern-day slavery and criminal exploitation as new threats in a similar way to the same conversations in the last decade around child sexual exploitation’.

The Home Office funding will finance a fouryear project to teach children aged ten to 14 how to recognise ‘ positive relationships’ and avoid being groomed.

Bradford councillor Adrian Farley said: ‘Organised criminals who exploit children and use them to carry out serious crime is a national issue. We’re determined to tackle it.’

West Yorkshire Police refuted claims over a lack of action, saying that it had made a number of arrests over drugs recently which could yet turn out to be related to county lines gangs.

The term refers to the phone lines used by dealers from major cities who use children to transport and sell their drugs around the country.

A police spokesman said: ‘ Within the last two weeks, West Yorkshire Police has undertaken operational activity around this type of crime, safeguarding 22 potential victims, making 16 arrests and seizing drugs, firearms and weapons.

‘All of those arrested will be subject to an investigation and – where appropriate – charged and put before the courts where the detail and means of offending will be identified and could be seen as an aggravating factor.’

‘Criminals who exploit children is a national issue’