‘Learn the lessons of Rotherham to tackle menace of county lines’: Ofsted chief fires warning on drug gangs which are recruiting children as young as 12 years old
- Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman will today warn that no child is safe from gangs
- Ms Spielman will say lessons must be learnt from the Rotherham abuse scandal
- County lines gangs are recruiting from middle-class families in spa towns
- Up to 50,000 children have been forced to run drug lines in provincial towns
Lessons must be learnt from the Rotherham sex abuse scandal to tackle the growing crisis over child drug mules, the schools watchdog claims.
Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman will warn today that no child is safe from county lines gangs, which are recruiting from middle-class families in genteel spa towns.
Up to 50,000 children, including some as young as 12, have been forced to run some 1,500 drug supply lines in provincial towns.
The Chief Inspector of Schools will warn: ‘I am very concerned that, despite the hard lessons we have all learned from past failures to pick up child sexual exploitation, similar mistakes may be being made.’
Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman (pictured) will today warn that no child is safe from county lines drug gangs
In a major speech, she will urge social workers not to ‘lag behind’ in spotting the issue and add: ‘We’ve seen before the dangers of not discussing contextual or risk factors that relate to race or religion, for example.’
During the Rotherham sex abuse scandal, girls being were being groomed by Asian gangs. Mrs Spielman’s speech comes as an Ofsted report warns that the county lines crisis is spreading to towns such as Cheltenham and Tunbridge Wells.
Middle-class children are being forced into delivering drugs around leafy streets in taxis, says the report.
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It also tells how loving parents are often completely unaware of what their children have become involved in. ‘Children who were once captain of their school football team, musically gifted or academically excelling may lose interest [after being recruited],’ it adds.
Nine out of ten police forces are battling the county lines gangs – whose activities have been highlighted by the Mail – with half of the forces having encountering child drug runners, according to National Crime Agency figures.
The gangs are named after the mobile phone ‘hotlines’ they operate to take orders from users in rural and suburban areas. Local children are often used to field the calls and transport the drugs from cities out to the shires.
Boy, 16, ‘used as county lines foot soldier’
Peter Kenney, 48, (above) was jailed for seven years for conspiracy to sell class-A drugs yesterday
A boy of 16 used as a county lines ‘foot soldier’ by London gangsters was sent 340 miles to peddle hard drugs in Cumbria, a court heard.
He went by train from Croydon with heroin and crack cocaine worth almost £1,500. He stayed in the Carlisle home of addict Peter Kenney, 48, (above) who was jailed for seven years for conspiracy to sell class-A drugs yesterday.
Carlisle Crown Court heard the boy was arrested on May 22 as he left Kenney’s flat to go home. He had £1,439 in his backpack – proceeds from around 90 deals. He admitted drug charges and will be sentenced at a later date.
Mrs Spielman will deliver her stark warning to council bosses and care providers at the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Manchester.
She is due to say: ‘Though children who have fallen out education are likely to be targeted…all children, including those in areas of relative affluence, are fair game.
‘We have heard of gangs targeting private school children, for example, because they are less likely to raise suspicion.’
Mrs Spielman fears not all professionals ‘fully understand the scale of the problem in their area’. She will say: ‘This means that agencies aren’t always spotting children who are at risk. Children who are being exploited can’t wait for agencies that are lagging behind.’
She will urge parents and schools to be vigilant to the signs that a child may be involved, which include a sudden change in behaviour and frequent disappearances.
‘As a parent you might sense something is wrong with your child,’ she will say. But how many suspect their child is being groomed? For most, it is almost inconceivable.’
The Ofsted report published today follows a series of inspections of public services in local authority areas to assess how they are tackling the gangs.
The study of services in Greenwich, Southend-on-Sea in Essex, and Dorset says often professionals have often not intervened quickly enough.
It adds: ‘Children are groomed with promises of money or gifts and then cannot escape because of intimidation from the gang.’
Sometimes gang bosses stage fake robberies in which the child loses their drugs – meaning they then have to ‘work for free’ to repay the ‘debt’.
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