County lines drugs gang
recruits 40 pupils in one
school – one for each class
By Charles Hymas
hoMe AffAiRS editoR
A COUNTY lines gang recruited 40
children to deal drugs at a secondary
school, equivalent to one dealer in
every class, police have disclosed.
The teenagers, some as young as 14,
had been supplied with drugs and
dealing kits including bags and scales
to measure cocaine and cannabis that
they sold to others at the school.
Police who broke up the ring in early
morning raids this week said the net-
work of 40 pupils, accounting for one
in 30 children at the 1,200-pupil
school, had been recruited by a main
dealer and two young lieutenants.
The main dealer was exposed
after allegedly trying to entice girls as
young as 14 at Kingsdown School in
Swindon, Wilts, to have sex in return
for cocaine.
Sgt Nathan Perry, of Thames Valley
Police, who oversaw the 7am raids,
said: “We found the person we’re look-
ing for, we’ve managed to safeguard
the children who were at risk and
we’ve found drugs. We all know about
county lines and the risks associated
with that.”
The National Crime Agency (NCA)
estimates the number of county lines,
where gangs transport drugs from cit-
ies to towns sometimes hundreds of
miles away, has more than doubled
from 720 to 2,000, with each capable of
making £800,000 a year.
Lynne Owens, head of the NCA,
disclosed in The Daily Telegraph earlier
this week that she would seize county
line gang bosses’ property, luxury cars
and watches by using laws designed to
tackle the “unexplained wealth” of cor-
rupt oligarchs.
Sgt Perry said: “The difficulty with
this type of drugs operation is that it’s
specifically targeting very young chil-
dren in order to get them to deal
drugs. Some of the information
we’ve been passed is that chil-
dren are not only being co-
erced into this activity ...
they’re also being physically
threatened.”
A pair of older teenage boys,
both 16, are believed to have
been supplying the net-
work of up to 40 in
their mid-teens.
A 27-year-old was
arrested during the
morning raid on sus-
picion of possession
SWINDON ADVERTISER/SWNSNews
of class B drugs with intent to supply
and inciting a child to engage in sexual
activity.
The school, in a largely middle-class
area with fewer disadvantaged pupils
than the national average, was judged
to be struggling and “requiring im-
provement” by Ofsted in 2016.
A follow-up inspection said it was
improving after a leadership shake-up,
but suggested a minority of disaffected
older pupils showed little interest inlearning – potential targets for drug
dealers. Emma Leigh-Bennett, Kings-
down’s head teacher, said safeguarding
children was the school’s first priority
and had helped found a multi-agency
group with Wiltshire Police to share in-
telligence. It was this which led to the
raids on Wednesday.
“The school works tirelessly to be
alert to information about drugs in our
community. The safeguarding leads
are quick in their response to share it
with those that must and need to
know,” said Mrs Leigh-Bennett.
Police have been using modern slav-
ery laws to target drug dealers, which
Sgt Perry said would see offenders fac-
ing jail sentences of up to 15 years.
“The sheer nature of the exploitation
of these young people is unacceptable.
If we don’t do something to stop that
they’re potentially going to be at risk
for the rest of their lives,” he said.
“They need that positive engage-
ment and we’re not going to be able to
do that until we remove their handlers,
for want of a better word.”Police raid a house,
right, in Swindon,
where a drugs gang
recruited 40 pupils
from Kingsdown
School, above.
Inset below, head
teacher Emma
Leigh-BennettPupils as young
as four have
knives on them
By Charles Hymas
hoMe AffAiRS editoR
THE number of children
caught carrying knives in
schools has more than dou-
bled in five years to more
than 1,100, with the young-
est aged just four, figures re-
veal.
Weapons seized by police
included machetes, hunting
knives and a samurai sword.
In one case they found a
highlighter pen where an
11-year-old pupil in Man-
chester had changed its nib
to a blade and told another
pupil: “Listen to me or else
I’ll stab you.”
Figures show there were
1,144 knife possession of-
fences in schools where the
suspect was a child, in Eng-
land, Scotland and Wales last
year.
In England and Wales, the
number of offences based on
36 forces that provided com-
parable data rose from 372 in
2014 to 968 last year.
Dyfed-Powys Police were
called to one school in Wales
by teachers concerned that a
four-year-old had a knife, ac-
cording to the findings
obtained by 5 News under
Freedom of Information
laws.
David Simmons, a former
teacher who set up the
Changing Lives charity, said
he was confronted by a
six-year-old brandishing a
knife while working in a
north London school.
“He was threatening other
staff members and saying
that he was going to stab
them so I’ve gone over try-
ing to calm this child down,”
he said. “He’s then said he’s
going to stab me and kill me.
“You just wouldn’t have
thought that a six-year-old
should be doing that. Why
were they doing that?”
The figures are mirrored
by NHS England, which re-
corded 1,012 admissions of
young people aged between
10 and 19 to hospital after
a stabbing with a knife
or other sharp object last
year, compared with 656 in
2012-13.
The Home Affairs com-
mittee has called for schools
in areas with a higher risk of
youth violence to be given
dedicated police officers af-
ter revealing that a third of
forces had none.
Steven George, from the
National Association of Head
Teachers, said referring a
child to the police isn’t al-
ways the best option, add-
ing: “What you’re trying to
do is find a solution for that
child. Their family, circum-
stances, the neighbourhood
they live in, the people they
hang around with are all go-
ing to be factors and thosearen’t solved with a phone
call to the police.
“We know schools are be-
ing asked to do more than
before on a range of issues
that extend beyond the
school gates. If the figures
continue to grow, then that
is a problem that schools def-
initely cannot tackle alone.”
Archbishop Ilsley Catho-
lic School, in Birmingham,
carries out random checks
on students, where they are
searched before walking
through a knife arch. The
school said it did not have a
knife problem, and Helen
Burrows, the head teacher,
explained the checks were
brought in to teach children
about the wider world.
“It could happen at any
school at any time,” she said.
“I don’t think a child
bringing a knife into a school
is a localised issue. It’s a na-
tional issue.
“A child bringing a knife
into school is not acceptable,
but we would never wash
our hands of a child com-
pletely.”1,
The number of children caught
in possession of a knife at
British schools last yearThe Daily Telegraph Friday 23 August 2019 *** 11
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