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The Chapeltown heroin runners...aged eight
Drug dealers as young as eight are selling crack and heroin on the streets of Chapeltown.
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Community leaders from Chapeltown have warned that older criminals routinely recruit children to work for them as street dealers or as runners, who move cash and drugs between different dealers.
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Some operate on foot, others use BMX or mountain bikes to get around.
Lutel James, a volunteer coach at the Chapeltown Football Youth Development Centre, said adult criminals liked to use children under the age of 10, the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales.
Mr James said: "The dealers will have teenagers of all ages working for them.
"But they think the younger they are the less likely they are to go to jail. They know what the law is and they like to get them under the age of 10, then they can't be prosecuted.
"There are eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds out there doing it."
Mr James said the football centre, off Scott Hall Road, uses the game as a way to encourage local youngsters to take part in a wide-range of life-skills courses.
Its main aim is to steer young people away from street culture and build a strong future community for Chapeltown.
Mr James added: "We are desperate to get to them before they get to ten, because once they are working for the dealers the battle is so much harder. They pay them a lot of money.
"We had one kid come in here, he was about eleven. The teacher was trying to talk to him, but he just said 'what can you tell me when I can go out there and earn this.' Then he produced a load of notes, about 400, from his pocket."
Fabian Hamilton, MP for Leeds North East, said he witnessed the child drug dealers in action when he spent time on patrol in Chapeltown with local police officers.
Mr Hamilton said: "They were eight, nine-years-old. The police told me they are paid 100 a week for doing it. What incentive does that give these kids to work hard at school?"
He told how he watched the children shuttling between houses and various meeting points, some in Potternewton Park, where the deals were done.
He added: "As soon as they saw the police, they scattered. It shows that we must reach these children as early as possible.
"By doing so, we can save a lot of pain – and public money – later in life."
Bryan Dent, West Yorkshire Police's force drugs co-ordinator, promised tough action against anyone caught grooming children to sell drugs or commit any other crime.
He added: "This is a worrying and sinister aspect of drug crime that we are alive to. We will take an extremely robust stance should we find any young person being groomed or recruited to deal drugs."
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Weather for Leeds
Friday 18 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 8 C to 12 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 7 C to 11 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North
