Middlesbrough: Dealers on 'every street' and fire-bombed houses

Описание: KIDS as young as ten have been dealing drugs while riding bicycles around a British town riddled with substance abuse.

In the Teesside town of Middlesbrough, fed-up residents say they know of dealers "on every street" and even hospital wards are used to trade cocaine, heroin and meth.

Cleveland Police has the third highest rate of drug offences in the country, at 4.1 per 1,000 people, with only Merseyside and the Met having higher rates.

And the stark reality of life in the poverty-stricken zone emerged as residents told of houses being fire-bombed in drug-related reprisal attacks.

In the suburb of Hemlington, locals were genuinely scared to speak out about drug gangs causing carnage in their community.

They told The Sun how the community library was often used as a hub for dealing class A wares.

Joyce Barker, 58, said she had seen children as young as 10 using bikes to deliver drugs.

She said: "Every week there's a car that comes onto the estate - a big, posh car - and there's a huddle of kids who gather around it.

"They get the supplies doled out to them and then they go off delivering around the estate.

"I'm looking at them thinking 'you've not got a hair on your face'.

"They're so young. They should be in school, instead they're dealing drugs.

"But I don't blame the kids. They're seeing the posh car, the clothes, the watches and they want the same.

"It's the adults who know better. Deal your drugs, fine - that's your choice. But getting kids to do your dirty work. That's cowardly."

A police operation in Hemlington last year saw thousands of pounds worth of drugs seized and weapons recovered.

But locals say drugs continue to blight the estate.

One pensioner told how he lived two doors away from a drug dealer.

Too fearful to be named, he said: "There's a drug dealer on every street around here. Everyone knows who they are but nothing ever seems to stop them.

"We've got bungalows that have been set alight and boarded up because there's been a dispute or someone wants to mark their territory.

"Hemlington used to be a nice place to live. But it's just getting worse and worse.

"I've never known it as bad as it is right now. The place is just lawless."

Social worker Bethany White, 28, added: "People in power need to come and live here and experience what's going on.

"There's no community policing and so we've got a generation of kids who are growing up and won't acknowledge that the police are there to help."

The prevalence of drugs is so bad in Middlesbrough that doctors warned in September that dealers are brazenly selling drugs on hospital wards.

Police meanwhile said brazen drug leaders spray numbers on walls to advertise which house they are selling from.

Vascular surgeon Barney Green said: "What we're seeing is one admitted every 1.4 days. This is really related to the drugs trade and illicit crime.

Read more: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2506995...

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