Children exploited by drug dealers, report says

Mr Nelson said there were children being coerced

Escalating concerns over children being exploited by drug dealing operations in an inner city neighbourhood has led to authorities stepping up their response.

The St Mary's area of Southampton has "prominent levels" of criminal exploitation, with young people at an increased risk of offending and being brought into the youth justice system, councillors have heard.

Tim Nelson, head of young people's services, said: "We know in that area that children are being kind of coerced into supplying drugs to Class A drug users, which is a significant problem and worry."

A report to the panel by Mr Nelson said an assessment in February found hotspot areas, risks, community feedback and system challenges.

Actions to combat the issues include strengthening youth provision, especially at evenings and weekends, improving lighting, CCTV and underpass design, increasing police visibility and coordinating the disruption of exploiters.

Members of the city council's children and families scrutiny panel were told about the work being done to tackle this issue.

A new parent support group is due to be set up in the area by the end of next month and youth outreach will be increasing to seven days a week.

Councillor Ginnie Lambert said: "Our concern as Bargate councillors over the summer has been a huge concentration of young people primarily being exploited by drug users, drug dealers in our area.

"How confident are you that these young people are all from the St Mary's area because anecdotally we feel that some people are coming from other areas and have probably been exploited by county lines or whoever."

Mr Nelson said: "The challenge that we have, and this is how the police describe the situation to us, is that St Mary's is an area where there is a high demand of people who want to purchase drugs and therefore that is where the transactional arrangements take place.

"Where people buy and sell drugs, so those children who are being coerced and affected by that child criminal exploitation, there's probably a higher proportion of those children live close or in St Mary's but it is not exclusive.

"Whilst we refer to the work that we're doing in St Mary's, that's about trying to make that geographical location safer."