We’ve all heard the stories about the county lines drug dealers over the past couple of years and how children who are younger and younger are being recruited to get involved, but I don’t think that we could ever imagine that someone as young as seven could be involved.

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Turns out we were wrong though, as The Sun reports that a boy of that age was arrested in West Yorkshire last year with intent to supply. The seven year old wasn’t charged because you have to be at least ten years old to face criminal responsibility in this country, but social services were involved and it really is a damning statistic to illustrate just how grim things have become in the UK recently.

If you need any more evidence, than 2,380 under-17s were arrested in 36 of 44 forces in England and Wales last year for similar offences and the National Crime Agency (NCA) think that more than 4,000 children and young people were recruited by ‘county lines’ drug gangs in London alone in 2019. I guess stats will be down this year because of the global pandemic and the lockdown that has been affecting us for the past couple of months – and who knows how long after? – so I guess that’s one good thing that might have come from it.

Probably won’t stop it starting up again straight after though will it? 2020 is fucked man.

For more of the same, check out experts warning that county lines dealers are more scared of gang leaders than COVID-19. Guess I was wrong about that as well.