Gangs use middle-class children to traffick drugs in towns across country

MIDDLE-CLASS children are being used to traffick drugs by unscrupulous gangs who are spreading their networks into “most towns of substantial size” in the country, the children’s watchdog warns today.

The gangs were using children as young as 12 to traffick drugs using dedicated mobile phones in a strategy known as “county lines”, Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner said.

It involves the operation of a telephone number in an area outside a gang’s normal area, which is then used to sell drugs directly at street level.

They set up a secure base in a more rural area and use runners – often children – to conduct day to day dealings.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Ms Longfield said: “The number of lines have really increased quite rapidly over the last one to two years so now every police area reports activity.

“What has struck and shocked me as I have learned more is quite how fast and how deeply systematic it is – it is a business model. It is professionalised.” Places such as Norfolk and Huddersfield were being caught up in an escalating problem.

She said: “People do think it is a London problem but essentially it is now something that is a problem throughout the country and for most towns of substantial sizes.

“If they have not already been targeted they will be targeted. There are increased instances of middle-class children being involved.”

Last year, a report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Runaway and Missing Children and Adults said the drug distribution model had spread from London to the rest of the country.

The inquiry was told that children as young as eight or nine are being regularly groomed and exploited by gangs.