A mum whose teenage son became involved with selling drugs has warned it could happen to any family.
Laura told of her horror when she received a call from police saying her 13-year-old son Callum had been arrested at a drugs den.
She said: “People think it just happens to vulnerable people in care, children who are not being looked after at home, children of drug addicts ... it’s really not.
“I had a job as an office manager, I travelled abroad with my work. I’m a single mother, working 40 hours a week to keep a roof over my children’s heads after my divorce.
“I’m not saying I’m the world’s perfect mother, but it’s something I never expected to happen to me.”
Laura and Callum, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, were speaking at the launch of a new campaign to raise awareness of drugs gangs grooming children on Merseyside.
Eyes Open, launched by Merseyside’s Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP), wants people to recognise the signs of grooming, and raise the alarm.
Laura first became aware something was not quite right when she found money in Callum’s room.
She said: “I started finding money in his bedroom. He was telling me it was pocket money I’d been giving him, and that he was saving it to buy me something.
“The first time, because it was just pound coins and stuff like that, I didn’t think that much of it.
“But then it seemed to be more and more money, and I knew I hadn’t given him it – but he’d always come up with an excuse.”
She continued: “The next time, I found a mobile phone under his mattress ... and it was typically what drug dealers use, a throwaway thing.
“He told me he was minding it for somebody else, which totally raised my suspicions.”
Laura questioned Callum, asking him who he was minding the phone for, but he was cagey.
Just a few months before, Callum had been stabbed during a violent attack. Laura believes the gang targeted her son in the wake of his assault, preying on his vulnerability as part of their grooming process.
She said: “This is how they got him in to it. The ‘elders’, so to speak, said ‘nobody will ever touch you again – we’ll look after you’.”
Laura’s fears were confirmed when she got a call from police to say Callum had been arrested.
She said: “The police called and told me he’d been arrested in a house where a vulnerable person lived, but it was a known drug house.
“He’d been caught with heroin, crack cocaine, and money.”
Laura continued: “Horrified wasn’t even the word, I couldn’t believe it was my son – no chance, not at that age. I didn’t recognise him at all.”
It was after Callum’s arrest that Laura learned the full horrific details of what her teenage son had been exposed to.
She said: “He’d been dealing drugs to prostitutes, to drug addicts, but he’d also seen a lot of things in that house that a little boy should never see ... people having sex, taking drugs.
“They had exposed him to all kinds – and to me, that’s child abuse.
The family had to go through the legal process, leaving the teenager with a criminal record. Laura moved her family to another part of the city, and Callum had to stop seeing his friends.
Laura explained: “We didn’t want these people to know where we lived, so for him, the impact of that was massive. He’d grown up with these friends, it was like starting a whole new identity for him.
“He became very withdrawn, staying in the house, and not wanting to do anything. To this day he doesn’t open up about what happened to him, and what he’s been through.
“He’s still under mental health services, and he does take medication for depression. This will have a lasting affect on him - it’s life changing.”
Laura is still very angry about what happened to Callum, and the lasting impact on him.
She continued: “Young children are being criminalised. They’re being found with Class A drugs, it’s an offence – so that’s their life over before it’s even begun.
“This can happen to anyone - people who live in big, posh houses ... middle class parents. These people know who to prey on.”
But Laura’s heartbreak didn’t end there. With Callum’s case being reported in the news, she found herself devastated by comments left by readers.
She said: “I had to stop reading, because I couldn’t cope with it.
“Some people were saying ‘what kind of disgusting parents allowed this to happen, the mother must be a crack head’.
“It was so hurtful ... plus I didn’t want him to read stuff like that. Something like that could tip a child over the edge, and that’s another thing I was scared of ... whether he would do something to himself.
She continued: “I’ve had to go on medication as well, because I was heartbroken, absolutely heartbroken, not so much for me, but for him. I felt I’d allowed this to happen, but I just didn’t know.
“There is no stereotype, this can happen to any family.”
“It’s time we saw drug gangs for the abusers they are"
Merseyside’s Violence Reduction Partnership has launched a campaign asking the public to keep their ‘Eyes Open’ to the signs of children being groomed by drug gangs.
After London, Merseyside’s drug gangs are the second biggest abusers of children, grooming kids as young as 10.
Grooming involves making a child increasingly vulnerable, often buying the targeted youngsters gifts like clothes, food or bikes to give them a false sense of being part of the gang, or ‘family’.
Groomers target children because they are easy to manipulate and exploit, and are less likely to be stopped by the police while carrying their drugs.
Once groomed, the target is sent away to other parts of the UK to sell the gangs’ drugs, a practice known as ‘cuckooing’.
The vulnerable youngsters often end up hundreds of miles from home.
This can go on for weeks, meaning they go missing from homes and schools for long periods of time.
Now, in a bid to fight back against the groomers, Merseyside’s Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP) has launched the ‘Eyes Open’ campaign.
Superintendent Mark Wiggins, who heads up MVRP, said: “It’s time we saw drug gangs for the abusers they are.
“Drug gangs are grooming kids in Merseyside every day. Grown men, and sometimes women, grooming vulnerable kids from all sorts of backgrounds.
“They are coercing them to sell drugs, to be on the end of a phone line 24 hours a day to deliver drug orders, to store firearms and weapons, and to invade vulnerable people’s homes often hundreds of miles away from their homes to help the gangs make money.”
As part of the campaign, billboards will appear around the city, highlighting the signs of grooming, and carrying quotes from children who have been caught up in the world.
Supt Wiggins continued: “This depraved criminal behaviour has to stop.”
Merseyside’s Police Commissioner Jane Kennedy said: “I welcome this hard-hitting campaign.
“Very often we do not notice or recognise the warning signs when a young person is being groomed for exploitation and even when we are worried we don’t know what to do.
“We need the public’s help if we are to prevent young people falling prey to the criminal gangs and I hope this campaign will enlighten and educate us all.”
For more information, visit the website www.eyes-open.co.uk.
