Kungfoolss
07-14-2003, 01:16 AM
I only sells crack and heroin .. I get £50 a day and give me mum £20 'cos she's so skint
Jul 13 2003
THE BOY OF 12 WHO PUSHES HARD DRUGS WITH A MOBILE & MOUNTAIN BIKE
Graham.Johnson@Mgn.Co.Uk
JOHN is a boy of 12 who loves riding his mountain bike, playing on his Game Cube and buying gifts for his Mum. He even has his own colourful gnome in the family garden. He looks like most other kids his age in his Nike hooded top, tracksuit bottoms and Adidas trainers. You wouldn't know it from his slight build or his friendly, freckled face, but one thing that makes John different from most boys.
He's a professional drug dealer.
His bike is used to deliver his merchandise, the garden gnome is where he hides his stash of heroin and crack cocaine, while his Game Cube and the presents for his mum were all bought out of his "earnings". Zig-zagging through the semi-derelict streets around his "patch" in Liverpool, John - not his real name - is one of a growing band of hardened young children taking over the front line of Britain's drugs trade. He sells £400 worth of Class A drugs a day to junkies waiting desperately for their next hit. Working for his older cousin, he is allowed to keep £50 a day. It's a fortune for someone so young and his £300 a week "wage" is exactly the same as the average take-home pay in Liverpool. John gives £30 to his jobless mum and keeps the rest for himself to spend on designer clothes and the latest computer games. A mobile phone, his mountain bike and a bus pass were all paid for by his cousin to help him keep up his deliveries.
John is so innocent and naive about the criminal, possibly violent, future that awaits him that he talks excitedly of "retiring" at 14. He hasn't been to school since he and his mum moved from Scotland two years ago. He says she never asks what he gets up to. But while his mates are in class, he works a nine-and-a-half-hour shift, six days a week. He's by no means alone. Undercover investigators quickly found two more youngsters, aged 13 and 14, dealing near the famous Anfield soccer stadium. Harder for police to control, and cheaper for Fagin-style gang bosses to run, they are the modern day Oliver Twists who keep the cogs turning in Britain's £20billion illegal drugs industry. Experts say the youngsters are exploited and encouraged by the heroin and cocaine barons
John's 21-year-old cousin even pays for twice-weekly kick-boxing lessons so John "toughens up" and can defend himself from attacks by rival dealers.
Robberies, beatings and stabbings are a daily danger, so much so that on big deals he is accompanied by a bodyguard with a gun. John, who speaks with a mixed Scottish and Scouse accent, made harder to understand by a speech impediment, said: "I work six days a week and take Sundays off so I can spend it with my mum. "I get myself up at seven o'clock in the morning and have two Weetabix. At about quarter past eight I turn my phone on. It's a T-mobile which my cousin bought me. "At about half eight my cousin drops off the gear. It's always 20 rocks (crack cocaine) and 15 brown (small bags of heroin) I only sells white and brown (crack and heroin). I charge £10 for a rock and £10 for the brown. It's two for 15 and three for £25. "They weigh about 0.1g each. They are already weighed out and wrapped when my cousin gives them to me. Then I stash the gear in my gnome in our back garden. "It's just a blue gnome with a little fishing rod, but it's hollow and there's a hole in the bottom. It keeps the tackle (drugs) dry.
"I start getting the first call at about ten past nine. That's about ten minutes after the post office opens and the bang-heads (users) have just cashed their Giros. "They tell me what they want. I only carry what they've asked for, in my sock. And I ride round to them on the bike. Although I don't live there, I sell in Wavertree and Huyton. If it's someone in Huyton my cousin bought me a one-year bus pass so I can get over there. All my smack heads are grown ups, about 20 or 30. I feel sorry for them because they're always scruffy. They are dead skinny and stink. "I know that what I'm doing is killing them. I do think about that - but I'm only doing it for me and my mum because she's always skint. "And it's up to them if they want to buy it. If it wasn't me selling it would be someone else. "They're always trying to rob you. Last night one of them said we hadn't given the rocks he paid for. We searched his pockets and found them. I know loads of lads who've been shot and stabbed. That's the just the way it is. "The money I give to my mum helps pay the mortgage. We got one for £12,000 after I started selling the gear. I'm proud of that. She used to work, but now she's got no job. "We split up from my dad three years ago. He works as a cook but we don't get no money off him. Out of my wages I give her £30 every day. I also bought her a Nike tracksuit last week for £60. Everyone in our family says that I'm kind. I bought my auntie a gold ring for £60 for her birthday and my nephew, who's four, a toy tractor."
John and his mum moved from Glasgow after she was divorced from his Scottish father. The last school he attended was a primary school in Glasgow two years ago. He started dealing drugs 10 months ago when he was 11 after hanging around with his 21-year-old cousin. John said: "One day I was with him. Someone phoned him for some white, some rocks, so I went with him to give them to the fella. "When we got home he gave me a £10. That's how I started. Then he asked me if I wanted to sell for £20 a day. But on my first day we were both had off (mugged) in Huyton. "A gang of lads battered us and took our money and our gear off us. "I had a go, but they broke my wrist. They broke my cousin's leg. We were both in hospital for a while.
"After that he said that I had to toughen up so that the gear doesn't get robbed again. Now he pays for my kick-boxing lessons twice a week. It's £3 a time. "He's a champion kickboxer and he also does ju jitsu and karate.
You've go to doing this job. "We're not worried about the police. Never. We're more worried about being robbed by other lads than the police. "The police can't search you without the permission of an adult. I've never been nicked but they can't do me anyway. "All's they can do is ask us who's carrying the gear. We tell them it's someone else and then ride off on our bikes. It's that easy. "My cousin bought me my bike so I could ride round knocking out gear. It was £120 from the Picton Road cycle shop. "I knock off at six o'clock then he takes over. He buys me my chippie (meal from chip shop) then I go home to give me mum my wages. "She never asks what I do. I earn good money. Every two months I spend £200 on clothes for myself and I bought my Game Cube for £223. Sometimes I take my cousins out for a Chinese. "I want to retire when I'm 14. All I want to have is enough money to send my mum on holiday." Dr Chris Hanvey, director of operations for Barnados, the UK's largest children's charity said, says the recruitment of boys as young John is a sign of the drugs trade spreading ever deeper into society. "Five years ago this would not have happened," he said.
His organisation has reported a huge rise in the number of pre-teen and young children using drugs and dealing. And they are urging the Government to do more to target young drug abusers. A Department of Health survey recently found 15 per cent of 15-year-olds have been offered crack cocaine and 12 per cent heroin. One in three had also been asked if they wanted glue, butane gas or other solvents to abuse. John, meanwhile, says he has never touched the drugs himself.
Sadly, it can only be a matter of time.
News article link (http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/content_objectid=13172645_method=full_siteid=10669 4_headline=-I-only-sells-crack-and-heroin----I-get---xA3-50-a-day-and-give-me-mum---xA3-20--cos-she-s-name_page.html)
Jul 13 2003
THE BOY OF 12 WHO PUSHES HARD DRUGS WITH A MOBILE & MOUNTAIN BIKE
Graham.Johnson@Mgn.Co.Uk
JOHN is a boy of 12 who loves riding his mountain bike, playing on his Game Cube and buying gifts for his Mum. He even has his own colourful gnome in the family garden. He looks like most other kids his age in his Nike hooded top, tracksuit bottoms and Adidas trainers. You wouldn't know it from his slight build or his friendly, freckled face, but one thing that makes John different from most boys.
He's a professional drug dealer.
His bike is used to deliver his merchandise, the garden gnome is where he hides his stash of heroin and crack cocaine, while his Game Cube and the presents for his mum were all bought out of his "earnings". Zig-zagging through the semi-derelict streets around his "patch" in Liverpool, John - not his real name - is one of a growing band of hardened young children taking over the front line of Britain's drugs trade. He sells £400 worth of Class A drugs a day to junkies waiting desperately for their next hit. Working for his older cousin, he is allowed to keep £50 a day. It's a fortune for someone so young and his £300 a week "wage" is exactly the same as the average take-home pay in Liverpool. John gives £30 to his jobless mum and keeps the rest for himself to spend on designer clothes and the latest computer games. A mobile phone, his mountain bike and a bus pass were all paid for by his cousin to help him keep up his deliveries.
John is so innocent and naive about the criminal, possibly violent, future that awaits him that he talks excitedly of "retiring" at 14. He hasn't been to school since he and his mum moved from Scotland two years ago. He says she never asks what he gets up to. But while his mates are in class, he works a nine-and-a-half-hour shift, six days a week. He's by no means alone. Undercover investigators quickly found two more youngsters, aged 13 and 14, dealing near the famous Anfield soccer stadium. Harder for police to control, and cheaper for Fagin-style gang bosses to run, they are the modern day Oliver Twists who keep the cogs turning in Britain's £20billion illegal drugs industry. Experts say the youngsters are exploited and encouraged by the heroin and cocaine barons
John's 21-year-old cousin even pays for twice-weekly kick-boxing lessons so John "toughens up" and can defend himself from attacks by rival dealers.
Robberies, beatings and stabbings are a daily danger, so much so that on big deals he is accompanied by a bodyguard with a gun. John, who speaks with a mixed Scottish and Scouse accent, made harder to understand by a speech impediment, said: "I work six days a week and take Sundays off so I can spend it with my mum. "I get myself up at seven o'clock in the morning and have two Weetabix. At about quarter past eight I turn my phone on. It's a T-mobile which my cousin bought me. "At about half eight my cousin drops off the gear. It's always 20 rocks (crack cocaine) and 15 brown (small bags of heroin) I only sells white and brown (crack and heroin). I charge £10 for a rock and £10 for the brown. It's two for 15 and three for £25. "They weigh about 0.1g each. They are already weighed out and wrapped when my cousin gives them to me. Then I stash the gear in my gnome in our back garden. "It's just a blue gnome with a little fishing rod, but it's hollow and there's a hole in the bottom. It keeps the tackle (drugs) dry.
"I start getting the first call at about ten past nine. That's about ten minutes after the post office opens and the bang-heads (users) have just cashed their Giros. "They tell me what they want. I only carry what they've asked for, in my sock. And I ride round to them on the bike. Although I don't live there, I sell in Wavertree and Huyton. If it's someone in Huyton my cousin bought me a one-year bus pass so I can get over there. All my smack heads are grown ups, about 20 or 30. I feel sorry for them because they're always scruffy. They are dead skinny and stink. "I know that what I'm doing is killing them. I do think about that - but I'm only doing it for me and my mum because she's always skint. "And it's up to them if they want to buy it. If it wasn't me selling it would be someone else. "They're always trying to rob you. Last night one of them said we hadn't given the rocks he paid for. We searched his pockets and found them. I know loads of lads who've been shot and stabbed. That's the just the way it is. "The money I give to my mum helps pay the mortgage. We got one for £12,000 after I started selling the gear. I'm proud of that. She used to work, but now she's got no job. "We split up from my dad three years ago. He works as a cook but we don't get no money off him. Out of my wages I give her £30 every day. I also bought her a Nike tracksuit last week for £60. Everyone in our family says that I'm kind. I bought my auntie a gold ring for £60 for her birthday and my nephew, who's four, a toy tractor."
John and his mum moved from Glasgow after she was divorced from his Scottish father. The last school he attended was a primary school in Glasgow two years ago. He started dealing drugs 10 months ago when he was 11 after hanging around with his 21-year-old cousin. John said: "One day I was with him. Someone phoned him for some white, some rocks, so I went with him to give them to the fella. "When we got home he gave me a £10. That's how I started. Then he asked me if I wanted to sell for £20 a day. But on my first day we were both had off (mugged) in Huyton. "A gang of lads battered us and took our money and our gear off us. "I had a go, but they broke my wrist. They broke my cousin's leg. We were both in hospital for a while.
"After that he said that I had to toughen up so that the gear doesn't get robbed again. Now he pays for my kick-boxing lessons twice a week. It's £3 a time. "He's a champion kickboxer and he also does ju jitsu and karate.
You've go to doing this job. "We're not worried about the police. Never. We're more worried about being robbed by other lads than the police. "The police can't search you without the permission of an adult. I've never been nicked but they can't do me anyway. "All's they can do is ask us who's carrying the gear. We tell them it's someone else and then ride off on our bikes. It's that easy. "My cousin bought me my bike so I could ride round knocking out gear. It was £120 from the Picton Road cycle shop. "I knock off at six o'clock then he takes over. He buys me my chippie (meal from chip shop) then I go home to give me mum my wages. "She never asks what I do. I earn good money. Every two months I spend £200 on clothes for myself and I bought my Game Cube for £223. Sometimes I take my cousins out for a Chinese. "I want to retire when I'm 14. All I want to have is enough money to send my mum on holiday." Dr Chris Hanvey, director of operations for Barnados, the UK's largest children's charity said, says the recruitment of boys as young John is a sign of the drugs trade spreading ever deeper into society. "Five years ago this would not have happened," he said.
His organisation has reported a huge rise in the number of pre-teen and young children using drugs and dealing. And they are urging the Government to do more to target young drug abusers. A Department of Health survey recently found 15 per cent of 15-year-olds have been offered crack cocaine and 12 per cent heroin. One in three had also been asked if they wanted glue, butane gas or other solvents to abuse. John, meanwhile, says he has never touched the drugs himself.
Sadly, it can only be a matter of time.
News article link (http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/content_objectid=13172645_method=full_siteid=10669 4_headline=-I-only-sells-crack-and-heroin----I-get---xA3-50-a-day-and-give-me-mum---xA3-20--cos-she-s-name_page.html)
