County lines: Girl drug runners in the UK

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2019

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

New figures released in the UK have revealed at least 4,000 young people are currently caught up in what are known as "county lines" – meeting orders for heroin and cocaine via mobile phone "deal lines". They are transporting drugs from cities to rural and coastal towns, and carrying weapons too – knives, hammers and acid. Many find themselves selling drugs in a strange town, trapped, too scared to leave. Increasingly, when police raid the "traphouses" where the drugs are held, they are finding girls. For Assignment, Jane Deith hears the stories of young women caught in a world of sexual violence and drug running.

Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Emma Forde

(Photo: Young woman by a window. Credit: Cindy Goff/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I know London people pay a lot of money to get high it
0:17.5	Stark white weaved all of that do you get me the The hit Netflix drama Top Boy. In the new cowboy film series a London drugs gang expands its business on the coast and in the northwest of
0:22.4	England.
0:25.5	So-called county lines are on our TV screens.
0:28.7	Plus that cash.
0:30.3	And they're on Snapchat. Real life gang members grinning into the camera, flashing
0:36.8	wads of cash and gold watches and boasting its light work.
0:41.1	Like work, look, come on. Light work. Like work, look, come on.
0:43.0	Light work.
0:44.0	Like, 20, quick 20, quick 20, quick 20, quick,
0:48.0	quit, jumpy.
0:49.0	My man's one still traps will jumpy.
0:52.0	There are even songs written about it bragging about
0:54.5	sending boys to do their dirty dangerous business. County lines are everywhere. County lines are in Cardiff.
1:05.0	County lines in Cardiff.
1:09.0	County lines are everywhere. County lines are everywhere. Here in the UK criminal gangs often recruit vulnerable children. Many have been
1:26.4	struggling at home in school or in care to move drugs like crack and heroin
1:31.5	from big cities to smaller towns and use dedicated mobile
1:36.1	phone lines to sell them hence the name county lines.
1:40.4	Drop them a text and you can have drugs delivered to you.
1:44.0	With UK politicians pledging a tougher line on crime
1:47.5	and with police breathing down their necks,
	...

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