The brutal reality of county lines drug warfare is laid bare in a gripping new ITV drama starring Martin Clunes. While it tells the story of a farmer confronted with these dark forces creeping into his rural community, the fictional tale is informed by shocking real life cases. Retired Sussex Police Detective Inspector Bill Warner, who advised ITV researchers on the drama, reveals the violence has been spreading nationwide over the last decade and “is absolutely brutal”.
Bill says: “Organised crime groups target vulnerable young kids, sometimes aged 13 or 14, giving them new trainers, mobile phones or cash, then they suck them into a life of crime. They rob the kids while they are delivering the drugs to trick them into thinking they owe them money, then say they have to carry a knife to protect themselves. And it’s not just one OCG invading an area, it’s several, so it’s a recipe for violence. When I was on the force, we saw lots of slashings where kids get stabbed in the buttocks instead of the stomach, meaning they get charged with GBH, not attempted murder, but sometimes they miss and hit the spine, meaning the kids end up paralysed. It’s terrible.”
County lines, the practice of trafficking drugs into rural areas, away from major cities, is an escalating and insidious crime that is sweeping the British countryside. In the ITV drama, Out There, which starts tonight, Martin Clunes plays Nathan Williams, a farmer who is worried about his teenage son Johnny, played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis, after the death of his wife Sabine.
Nathan is right to be concerned – Johnny has reconnected with an old friend, Rhys (Gerran Howell), now a local drug dealer. And Rhys manages to convince Johnny not only to run some drugs to a hotel for him, but that he owes them a favour. Urban gangs are using the farm area as a field of operations, moving drugs and money between their inner-city hubs and provincial areas. As Johnny gets sucked into a perilous situation, with his life engulfed by these gangs, it has a devastating impact.
Martin, who did a lot of research on county lines for the role, says: “County lines is very much a nationwide problem. This seemed like a story worth telling about the spread of the county lines drug business and the threat that it poses to people. It’s pretty dark. While this is a work of fiction, the way that business model works is represented accurately because the research by the team was so thorough. I was shocked by certain things – shocked by the stabbing. There is a story of stabbing every day in the news, and that callous approach to life, the way these kids are used as a disposable workforce. You can see the rank system, and the way they can rise up the ranks, It’s a very well thought out, nasty business.”
Louis, who plays the grieving and easily-led teen Johnny, says: “Johnny knows that Rhys is into dodgy things but thinks he’s quite cool. He agrees to look after a package, but when it mysteriously goes missing, it causes Johnny so much stress and confusion. Now Johnny is in debt to Rhys and has to do other missions. Rhys really tries to exploit him.” Louis adds: “I was aware of county lines and the infectious problem that it is. But I definitely had to do my research into what it actually was and who was being targeted. I found stuff on the victims, who they were and their ages, and it is pretty awful because they tend to be very young – between 14 and 17, and often they are vulnerable. They are promised this glamorous lifestyle. They are being preyed upon and lured in with money, designer clothes, watches, and someone from a less fortunate upbringing doesn’t have that.”
He adds: “A lot of the victims are not aware that they are being exploited, so they are taken advantage of and are completely oblivious to what is going on. It’s insanely common. There are thousands and thousands of young teenagers involved a year, and many of them end up dead. I felt shocked and scared when I found out. It’s so cruel as people are completely helpless and desperate. Communities are ripped apart, lives are destroyed. It’s a subject that needs to be talked about.”
Retired cop Bill, who worked in major crime units and covert policing for Sussex Police for three decades, explained to TV bosses how county lines gangs operate for the series. He says: “In the Brighton area, it started in around 2012. The Met was doing a very good job of disrupting organised crime gangs, so the gangs realised they needed to get out of London and start selling drugs elsewhere. They would send some of their trusted lieutenants down to the south coast to sell the drugs. Two kids would come down, probably aged about 20, then walk around town handing cards to druggies. They’d say, ‘We’ll give you two bags of brown (heroin) for the price of one, ring that number.’”
Bill continues: “The number reaches the OCG heads in London, who send their people to meet them. Then they would have a network of drug users to service and they’d pick one of the vulnerable ones and use their flat to deal from. Then they would get young local kids to deal the drugs. They’d give them trainers, money, the whole lot, then start sending them to London to collect. Often as they walk through the streets of London, the kids would be robbed by the same gang – then told ‘You owe us money’. The kids are loyal then. The boss says to them, ‘You’ve got to carry a knife, because you can easily get robbed. If anyone does, you’ve got to stab them.’”
Bill explains that during his time on the force they would run rolling three-month undercover operations to track the gang members, the drug users, burglars who were stealing for drug money, and where possible, do a ‘crack house closure’ on the flats He says: “We’d bash the door down, go in with a warrant, seize the drugs. But this was happening all over the south coast, this is the terrible thing. Drugs are a pariah to society, and this is a subculture that has groomed kids.”
Marc Evans, director, co-writer and executive producer on Out There, had the idea for the drama after hearing how the countryside was struggling with the county lines issue. He says: “If you look at county lines through the urban lens you are really talking about gangs on estates who are running the drug business out of inner city Britain. But if you look at it from the other end of the telescope in these small towns where the people are victims of county lines you realise how it affects ordinary people who may, up to that point, have had no contact with drugs. I was shocked by how young the kids are who are enlisted to it, and how these kids are not always disadvantaged, but kids who are just vulnerable and lonely and get drawn into it through devious means.”
He adds: “The other thing that I found really shocking is the excessive amount of violence that is used just in order to keep control of territory and markets. The police say the extremity of the violence that is dished out, especially via knives, amongst kids and to kids, is horrific in order to stop people selling their territories or keep people in line. You don’t think of rural Britain like that. You think of it as a benign, safe place, an innocent world. That’s changed.”
Bill can recall several instances of slashings, after noticing that kids were being stabbed in the buttocks, instead of the stomach He says: “I wondered why. But one kid, who had been paralysed from the waist down, explained that gang members go for the buttocks because they can admit to grievous bodily harm with intent, not attempted murder. But sometimes they are going for the buttocks, miss and get the spine. I remember another occasion where a young kid, about 15, was in a flat with a vulnerable resident. When we went in, the kid was on the phone holding a knife. The OCG heads had told him, ‘If the man doesn’t let you deal drugs, you’ve got to stab him.’ We were there just in time. Kids are groomed often because they don’t have a stable upbringing or good male role model. They see older kids with flash jewellery or flash cars and think, ‘I want to be like them’. Then they get hooked and that’s it, they are used to do all sorts of dangerous things and they are sucked into a life of crime.”
Producers and the cast of Out There are hoping their meticulously-researched drama will shed a light on this intensifying and frightening issue. Bill says: “Anything that signposts the problem will help because it makes it harder for gangs to recruit kids. We need to raise awareness and families need to talk.”
*Out There starts Sunday 19th January at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
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