Rachael Bletchly: Rescue young generation as drug lords are exploiting kids

TWO years ago I sat in a cafe as an ex-drug lord told me how he’d raked in millions by exploiting vulnerable children.

He’d sit in his luxury London flat taking orders for heroin and crack on his mobile.

Then his mini mules, in towns and villages across the UK, would deliver the drugs they’d stashed INSIDE their bodies.

It was the first time I understood the scale of the horrifying county lines epidemic.

Because ex criminal “Joe” said boys and girls as young as ten were enslaved into gangs and ­controlled with extreme ­violence – fuelling the surge in gun and knife crime in Britain.

Youth workers are horrified by the number of children caught in these gangs (stock image used) (Getty)

Joe said: “Police and ­authorities seem blind to the scale of this. People say it only ­happens to ‘problem children’ from deprived areas but it’s happening to ‘respectable’ middle class kids too.”

Jim had left his life of crime and worked with a charity supporting gang ­victims. I met the mother of a teenage lad he’d rescued after police and authorities failed their family.

I spoke to youth workers horrified at the numbers of kids being ensnared.

And MP Ann Coffey, chair of the All Party Group for Runaway and Missing Children told me: “We need a national strategy where communities, children’s services, schools, parents and agencies work closer with the police.

More and more children are being drawn into this frightening life, which often ends in addiction, debt and violence.”

That was TWO YEARS ago.

So why was there such shock his week when a report by The Children’s Society revealed kids as young as seven are now being exploited by county lines gangs... even those from “affluent backgrounds”?

Children as young as seven are now being exploited (stock image used) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

What was done ONE year ago when the Children’s Commissioner warned that 50,000 young people were already ensnared?

Nothing. Because Tory cuts have ­decimated youth services.

They’ve “emasculated” police forces too, according to five top cops who accuse Theresa May of draining resources to ­dangerously low levels.

They have called for a royal commission on policing and a reform of the fragmented system of 40 different forces.

But we URGENTLY need a national ­strategy to deal with the child criminal exploitation that is fuelling violent crime.

Before two more years of the county lines plague destroy a generation.