Beating County Lines (And Other Things to do Before Lunch): Criminal Exploitation of Children, #1

By Philip Priestley

County Lines is the business model being operated by organised criminal gangs throughout the UK in order to supply controlled drugs through the exploitation of children. It is a growing phenomenon and the UK authorities are not winning the battle against it.

 

This is a problem at the forefront of safeguarding responsibilities for schools, local authorities, the police, the National Probation Service, health and social services. More than anything it is a threat to families and every parent needs to know about it.

 

This book is for every service leader and for every parent seeking to protect children and young communities – or simply their own families. County Lines is not just a threat to a 'feral underclass' – it is a phenomenon that has resulted in serious harm and death to children from a wide variety of backgrounds and from all walks of life.

 

In writing this book I have drawn on my first hand knowledge of the mechanisms of County Lines and Child Criminal Exploitation. I will reference the insight that I have been given – both as a former police officer, as an investigator of crime, as a prevention and problem solving specialist, and now in my role working in schools with some of the most vulnerable children in society.

 

My specialist knowledge and experience, combined with the engagement that I have had with so many affected children and families, puts me in a rare position to add to the knowledge that we hold collectively. Sadly, most research in this area starts with the declaration that 'not enough is known about this phenomenon'. More needs to be published and recorded, and without doubt, more needs to be documented in the public domain about the hidden victims of child exploitation.

 

This book is corroborated by academic sources and contemporary media accounts.

 

Written in plain language – and never taking for granted the knowledge or expertise of the reader – this book will take anyone from a position of not knowing anything about this subject to a place where they are beyond the levels of knowledge that many professionals are currently operating with. This book outstrips the levels of training and insight offered to many professionals who are given only cursory awareness of this threat in the course of covering a wide number of child protection issues, limited by a very finite amount of training time.

 

This account contains compelling and very honest insights into the challenges that the UK is facing today when it looks at why County Lines is so successful. This book pulls no punches on the decisions that have been made which have undermined child protection and created a market for illegal drugs made available through the exploitation of children. I will give very candid and real examples of the children and young people I have worked with – the successes and the tragic failures that we have had collectively when dealing with criminal exploitation. I do not believe that there is a book openly available that will get you closer to the truth about this subject. My aim is to present this in such a way that it creates a very necessary conversation and paves the way for a significant variety of people to take the much needed meaningful action that is needed at this critical time.

 

Foreword provided by Chris Tooley, Principal of The Netherhall School and Oakes Sixth Form College, Cambridge. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Priestley
• Release date: Feb 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838213138

Book preview

Contents

Foreword

That school leaders face increasing challenges is a well-worn truism: operating under austerity budgets in the background of historic underfunding; managing the ongoing recruitment crisis, responding to the latest edict from OfSTED and, at present, the small matter of a world-wide pandemic.  Accompanying this, a seemingly insatiable expectation of schools as agents of social change: championing the PREVENT agenda, ensuring students emerge from school financially literate, having avoided teenage pregnancies and the gang culture, free of prejudice and ready to meet the economic needs of the country.  Perhaps we should be flattered by the confidence in our capacity?   Sadly, I suspect most would adopt a rather more sceptical view. 

So, is this just a case of, ‘teachers moaning about their lot again’? My experience is that this is not the case.  School leaders recognise that the challenges facing us are multi-faceted, insistent and visceral; however, we also appreciate that they motivate us in our work to affect social change: the, somewhat tired but nevertheless genuine, desire to ‘make a difference.’ 

But where to start amidst the plethora of competing nestlings demanding to be fed?  My contention is that, as school leaders, we cannot and should not resort to becoming operationally blinkered, succumbing to the ‘tyranny of the immediate’.  We are, after all, employed to lead, to empower, to affect progress.  To achieve that, we must strive to be aware and informed.  This means engaging fully with emerging issues: informing ourselves and others; devising focused responses and measuring impact.  Many of the challenges are chronic, requiring us to draw upon experience; however, when something completely new appears we need to start from scratch: Never has this been more true than in the case of County Lines.

On a personal level, I’ve worked with Phil Priestley for a number of years and have always been struck by the contrast between his easy-going, unassuming demeanour and the relentless, driven determination to affect change.  Following discussions with Phil, I was fortunate enough to be able to support his transition from a flourishing career in the Police Force to stepping into fulltime school work.  It’s fair to say that I’ve not regretted that decision for a second and neither have our students.

In this book, Phil provides an insightful, lived narrative to all aspects of County Lines.  At once comprehensive, compelling and illuminating, it demands a response from the reader.  Drawing upon his own experiences, he effortlessly draws us into the shadows, to a world of subtle radicalisation, grooming and abuse.  Here the spotlight is shone on the ‘key players’, the nature of the drugs in circulation, and business model that is now ubiquitous across the country.  All of this information is crucial for the school leader: if you don’t know the geography or speak the language, how can you negotiate the landscape and engage with the natives?

Moving forward, we are led to consider how children are drawn into County Lines activities.  Crucial and, without this recognition, we are powerless to be able to ‘go in after them,’ to secure their trust and to bring them out again.  We also examine the variety of approaches adopted by schools, learning that many of the techniques we’ve successfully employed over the years for other needs don’t and won’t work in this context.  Instead, we are guided to alternative methods, grounded in experience and practice, that can support our growth and provide the tools to affect change. 

And which students are we talking about?  Who are the County Lines management seeking to recruit?  We are led to see the link between those who have suffered trauma in their early lives, making them susceptible to grooming.  We are also faced with the notion that schools are unwittingly funding recruitment centres for County Lines by supporting the use of Alternative Provision centres.  Each school knows the students that are being referred to these institution and there is an uncomfortable truth in the portrait painted of the creation of training grounds for County Lines.  This is, however, not an attack on these centres or the great people who work in them; just a reflection on some potential unintended consequences.

Helpfully, having set out the challenges of County lines, we are then provided with a model for responding.  However, what is immediately clear is the financial challenge at a moment in history when we are seeing major investments in nuclear weapons, the military in general and infrastructure projects such as HS2 in particular.  This at a time when public services are suffering from over a decade of austerity and appear to be entering into a second, coronavirus-inspired, tightening of belts.  If the county lines phenomenon is to be effectively addresses, the full range of public services need to be allowed to step up to the plate.  That the people working within these institutions are ready to do just that is not in question; the villain of the piece is lack of capacity through chronic underfunding.  Regardless, as long as this is our reality, all duty is to think differently, to do all we can to make the most of the expertise and limited resource available.

A series of recommendations concludes the main body of this work; potentially the most provocative section.  Here the reader is left to grapple, not only with the macro level policy decisions, but their translation in the day-to-day functioning of schools.  On reflection, it is hard to fight the logic of the conclusions which are reached; at least, any internal objections from the reader necessarily lead to the retort (also internal) of, ‘if not this, then what?’  We are made to rethink our perspectives, our prejudices and our practices.  And once we have taken this time, there is the imperative to adjust to affect change, albeit local. 

Some books are of academic interest, you read and you move on.  In contrast, with this book, you read and it moves you on.

CHRIS TOOLEY HAS THIRTY years of professional experience as a secondary school and post GCSE educator. He is the Principal of the Netherhall School and Sixth Form Centre in Cambridge. He holds a Masters degree from the University of Cambridge in Educational Assessment, Testing and Measurement. His bachelors degree (also from the University of Cambridge) is in Natural Science and Education.

About the Author and Inclusive Development 

Phil Priestley was educated at the University of York and graduated in 2001. He joined North Yorkshire Police in 2003. In November of 2005 he transferred to Cambridgeshire Constabulary where he spent the rest of his policing career – until September 2019.

The first nine years of the author’s career were spent investigating crime as a qualified Detective Constable and Detective Sergeant. This included the specific investigation of violent crime and also controlled drug offences leading to successful prosecutions at both Magistrates and Crown Court levels. The author spent two years in the Public Protection Unit focusing on offences of Domestic Abuse, Serious Sexual Offences, Honour Based Violence and Child Abuse.

Phil Priestley was awarded three commendations in relations to his work during this period.

A transition from investigating crime to the prevention of crime happened in the latter half of his career – and a role in Neighbourhood Policing saw him lead the Constabulary relationship with Schools and Young People across the areas of East Cambs, South Cambs, Cambridge City and the Huntingdonshire districts.

In 2016 Phil founded the Cambs Youth Panel to improve the relationship and levels of rapport and trust that existed between the police and young people in East Cambridgeshire. This group is still active today and Phil continues to lead and organise it. At the time of writing the Cambs Youth Panel is a socially active group that represents the views and opinions of young people to a wide spectrum of statutory and elected partners across the whole of Cambridgeshire South.

Phil is an experienced multiagency practitioner who is used to working inside the world of collective problem solving. He has extensive experience of Child in Need / Child at Risk case conferences, of working with Social Care, Probation, Health, Education, Housing, YOT/YOS (Youth Offending Teams/Services) and local authorities at Parish, District and County levels.

In the course of his time as a police officer Phil has dealt with and interviewed a substantial number of young people directly involved in, and on the fringes of County Lines and Criminal Exploitation. Phil has worked with several young people who have been seduced, exploited and harmed by the County Lines phenomenon.

The author has spoken to parents, teachers, and young people in the writing of this book and in his professional capacity – trying to help young people to avoid being harmed by County Lines, or trying to help them extract themselves or loved ones from the web of coercion that County Lines represents.

Today Phil runs his own business – Inclusive Development. This company grew out of the need for a bridging service to replace the professional skills deficit left by years of harmful (and at times misleading) government led austerity measures.

Phil now works with several schools across Cambridge City, South Cambs and on the borders of the adjacent counties. The work that he undertakes involves an advisory and ‘critical friend’ role to educators. Schools are now at the very forefront of diagnosing risk around a child, and in the first instance responding to it and mitigating potential harm. Phil works on a daily basis with children in the highest bands of risk, as they are recognised by their respective schools. His mentoring work focuses on rapport building, mutual understanding, trust and positive influence.

2019/2020 saw a success for Phil and Inclusive Development – with several cases of acute vulnerability offering significant improvements in school cooperation, attainment, behaviour and other lasting outcomes.

Phil is passionate about social contribution and helping the vulnerable. During the COVID-19 crisis Phil led the Cambs Youth Panel in supplying more than 700 computers to young people (across Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire) who otherwise didn’t have the means to access online learning during the period of limited school access. Phil has raised more than £50,000 for good causes including the women’s domestic abuse charity Refuse, the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and towards COVID-19 relief and the provision of computers for disadvantaged children in his region.

Preface

Ileft policing in September 2019. Despite what I believe were the very best efforts of the most senior officers in the Constabulary to preserve resources in neighbourhood policing and community engagement, it was absolutely clear that this form of preventative policing had, at the very least, been significantly compromised.

I know for a fact that police leaders, and rank and file officers, feel passionately about engagement, problem solving and harm prevention. Relationship building is acknowledged to be a huge part of the spectrum of policing responsibilities. This being said, austerity has been an incredible challenge – and it remains an incredible challenge. Even now Chief Constables across the country are being given impossible choices to make between where very finite and much reduced resources (financial and headcount) should be employed or withdrawn. Not one of the decisions made has been a happy decision to make.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be in the room where some very experienced and knowledgeable professionals (who I respect massively) have had passionate debates about where we can do with less, and what communities can do without. I know that these conversations have been repeated across all of our public services – and today our School Principals resemble Chief Executives – being required, more than ever, to make very complicated financial decisions and structured plans as best they can around forecasts offered by central government and local authorities.

My move to create my own business to serve schools (predominantly) and to utilise my multiagency knowledge was not an easy one. It was an intimidating choice that has been full of personal risk. There is a clear need for what I do and what I provide – but being a police officer was a huge part of my identity for almost seventeen years. I am passionate about what I do, and the difference that I make working with some very vulnerable young people.

In the course of this book I hope you will gain insight into the huge threat that is posed by criminal gangs who seek to exploit children, and the County Lines model they utilise to achieve their aims. This is a journey that I’ve been on for a long time. I am acutely aware that the victims of Child Exploitation and County Lines don’t possess the tools to sit down and write their own book. They are invisible, they walk past you on the street, you see them for a moment and then they are gone. You rarely recognise them, or what is happening to them. Some of what I write and present is clearly aimed at giving you as much of what they experience through their eyes. I want you to see what they see, and feel how they feel.

I hope that in reading this you will gain a valuable insight. I think that what I am writing here will not be a revelation to many professionals in public services today – but I don’t think there are many accounts out there that will go to the same lengths to pull this together from so many perspectives and with the breadth of views that I hope to achieve. This book is ambitious – forgive me if it only gets us partially to where we need to be.

As adults I think that we have a huge responsibility to realise the responsibility that we hold to halt the trend towards drug supply based on the movements and the trafficking of child victims. There is so much more we can do. That is – above all else – what this book is about, and why I have written it.

PHIL

Introduction 

Kylo is a young man who is struggling with early life trauma, stress and anxiety. He is not what you would call ‘a bad lad’ – he is not a threatening or intimidating figure. He’s not particularly streetwise and he doesn’t cause many issues inside school. He was never on anyone’s radar as a particular risk. Of all the many agencies that are tasked with keeping children and young people safe in our communities – nobody really knew about Kylo.

It all began when he went to a party. He went along reluctantly – he was invited along by a friend and turned up in an awkward way – there were a lot of older people there and he felt out of his depth very quickly. People he recognised from years above him in school were talking in the kitchen. There were a lot of people that he didn’t recognise. There was loud music, there was a fog of herbal smoke in the air, there was booze – the people that he arrived with kept saying This is lit! and talked excitedly. Kylo wanted them to shut up – it made them seem obviously less mature than anyone else. There were girls there – one of the girls Kylo knew from school and his own year – Macy - but he’d never seen her looking quite like this before. She even looked different in her eyes. She was like a totally new person unconstrained by school uniform. He probably wouldn’t look twice at her in school to be honest. At this party he couldn’t keep his eyes off her – he would steal a look – then stare down or away to deliberately stop himself from just looking like a weirdo. She brushed past him deliberately on her way to the kitchen. He was blushing and completely on the back foot. He tried to say Hi and immediately moderated it into a cooler Yo. It came out Yi. He was sure that he was blushing. It was so embarrassing. For some reason he wanted to wave – but he was grateful that his hands didn’t seem to be obeying him and his whole body seemed disconnected. She didn’t hear his cringeworthy greeting. Or she ignored it. Or she didn’t hear it. In any regard, he didn’t feel in control at all.

The whole situation felt like an enormous pressure – all he could actually think about was what he looked like to everyone else, how bad he probably looked. He felt vulnerable – he thought that the other lads were going to turn on him at any minute, and ridicule him and use him to make each other laugh. He looked round the room. In the dimly lit corner one of the older boys was all over a girl that he didn’t know – or maybe he did – he didn’t know for sure. Someone had kicked over a bottle of beer and it was seeping into the carpet in gulps. Kylo wanted to make a dive for it and shout to someone to get a tea towel or something – but he stopped himself, he knew that would be deeply uncool. Whose house was this anyway? He thought he was going to George’s house – but George shook his head. Kylo felt like an imposter. His breathing was getting short. The smoke hanging in the air made him cough. There was an internal dialogue running through his head. How do I get out of here without looking stupid?. Scanning for the exits he actually thought about going to the bathroom and bailing out of the window. He just wanted to go home and be in his room, on his own. He could just go home and go back to hating himself in the safety of his own bedroom. Why the fuck was he even there? Then Macy passed him the cigarette, she physically put it between his lips – I get anxious when it’s wearing off too – have a drag on this... she leaned over towards him, he stared obviously into her fairly prominent cleavage.

And that was how it happened. Kylo previously had never even smoked – but he had seen people smoke and he was not going to embarrass himself in front of this version of Macy and he went with it. He wasn’t about to be the ‘just say no’ kid. He didn’t think he had the power in him to say no to anything she asked him to do. He just took the cigarette, held it awkwardly in his mouth and sucked on in. He immediately choked and coughed and spluttered as the cigarette bounced up and down. Macy looked at him in his eyes and said Slow down! – she was smiling. Hold it in your mouth – hold it – breathe it in slowly... She put her hand on his face when she said it – and that alone felt like an electrical impulse running through his entire body.

It didn’t take long for Kylo to feel dizzy – but relaxed – somehow calmer, less inhibited, more confident – oh my God thank you. It was like a wave of relief. He was looking for it again Don’t be greedy! she was flirting now and he was actually able stay cool and flirt back... he was beginning to feel ok there now – the crushing sense of inadequacy that was constantly shadowing him seemed to fade. It was cool. The focus wasn’t on him, or he didn’t care if it was. Another thing he wasn’t worried about was his mother’s cancer, he wasn’t preoccupied with making sure his brother had socks for the morning. He didn’t even think about his Dad – who he hated – it was the first time in an unquantifiable amount of time that he didn’t think about his fucking Dad who he hated.

Instead – he just felt chilled out – got lightheaded. He had a sweet, warm, tingling feeling – he wanted to laugh. He just wanted to laugh. And when he laughed, the others laughed with him. Not at him. With him. They just all felt so connected to this positive vibe.

As they drank someone toasted and said And fuck the feds man. Fuck the po-leese – the word was over pronounced in an artificial way Fuck the po-leese they all chimed and drank. Yo man, if you ever get any shit off the feds, and you don’t know what to say – just tell them ‘no fucking comment’. And the bottle clanked together.

The darkness in the room seemed to envelop him like an arm around his shoulders. It shrouded his horrible spotty skin. It threw a blanket over his worn out clothes and his crappy trainers. He just melted into this evening – it felt like just what he always needed – a holiday from himself.

It ended hours later with him throwing up outside the back door next to the bins. Not in the bins, next to the bins. His throat burned from the acid reflux coming up from his stomach – it was like the problematic personality he had been supressing all evening. He had eaten nothing. He had drunk too much. His head was lost in a fog of weed. Who knows how he got home? He woke up the following morning with a proper headache, like a splitting headache that needed a doctor. In a pretty foul mood, still dressed in the same clothes, late for school – Mum was shouting up the stairs asking him what was wrong. Just shut the fuck up will you! he shouted back venomously without even thinking. He couldn’t remember most of what happened. He couldn’t even remember being sick by the bins.

His phone went off and someone send him a Tik-Tok video of him throwing up at the back the house with a music track running behind it while people cheered him on. He looked completely wasted with a green complexion and the video showed him wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He looked down at his sleeve – which was stained with his dried sick. He smelled his own clothing and it was grim. Musty, sweaty, pungent, stale. His head was still banging. His phone kept going off. Normally he didn’t get messages from anyone. It was like he was popular or something Nice one mate – see you next week yeah? You ok? lolz.

His incoherent thoughts pieced themselves back together in an illogical pattern. There was no sense of order – what happened when – nothing like that. What he did remember was that warm feeling that he got, that tingle, that chilled out sense of bliss when he hit that cigarette. It was the drink that made him puke – but the weed – that was what he needed. He’d like to get some more of that.

So now a week later he had headed out on his bike. He had his hood up and a rucksack on. He’d pulled together a tenner and he hoped that would be enough. One of his new mates gave him a phone number and told him that the guy was decent and would sort him out. After a couple of text messages he had agreed to meet up in a part of town that he didn’t usually fancy roaming round in – he didn’t really know anybody up there – but he agreed to the meet up and went out there on his BMX.

Down at the park it was dark. Not dark in a nice way like at the party – but properly dark – murky and damp. Outside dark. At night. There was perhaps one orange lamp offering a poor attempt at illumination – all it managed to do was highlight the drizzle. It was a bit rainy, it was cold. This was not glamourous or enjoyable. An older lad stood by a moped and nodded at him – he nodded up and not down, like as if to say, Come over here. He talked to him quietly and took out a little bag of green herbal. It was then that Kylo realised that he didn’t have any papers, a lighter, anything at all basically. For some reason he kind of thought that this guy would hand over a rolled-up cigarette or something. More issues – where was he going to get papers – how do you get them? He asked the guy if he had any papers...

Suddenly from the corner of his right eye he saw a much older male – an adult, a proper adult – come charging towards him Is this the fucking one is it?!

Er, Yeah, yeah that’s him the lad with the moped said with a worried edge in his voice, nodding anxiously.

That was all.

Kylo didn’t feel the knife going into his stomach, or being pulled out. He just felt like he’d been punched hard. He was winded. He looked up and instinctively grabbed his stomach where he received the blow and his hands were wet. Time slowed right down. He felt the damp on his stomach. It wasn’t that wet outside. It was only drizzle. It didn’t make sense. He was properly wet. He was short of breath. His heart was racing. He felt lighted headed. Why was he so wet? Oh my god have I wet myself? he thought.

The man shouted at the lad with the moped.

That’s what they fucking get you see?! That’s what you fucking have to give them! We let them know! That’s what you fucking do! Why do I have to come down here and get this shit done?! You better fucking step it up bro or you’re fucking next, you get me?

Kylo staggered – his knees were weak – he saw blood on his hands, lots of blood and he was panicking. Shock was starting to set in. Why would nobody help him?

And you, you fucking little pussy – I want every penny for that fucking merchandise – you get me?! You’ll see me again and if I don’t get every fucking penny you pussy, you’re a fucking dead man. It was three-fifty, but now it’s five-hundred – you fucking get it sorted!

The man was shouting at him. As Kylo slumped down to his knees, confused about the numbers, and as his head started to go, his knees were in a puddle – his tracksuit bottoms were wet. He didn’t know if it was rainwater or blood or piss. Every second seemed like five minutes. He took every detail – every detail in slow motion. The man talked him down to the ground – with threats and abuse Five hundred! he kept saying. Fuck you!. It was like he was putting a landline phone down on someone he hated Fuck you! Fuck you! Fu...

There was blood on a knife. His blood.

This time Kylo woke up in hospital. He jolted like he’d come up from a bad dream. A monitor was bleeping out the rhythm of his heart at the side of his bed. His mum was in the cubicle, his little brother was sat there too. Don’t get up Kylo said a compassionate female voice. It’s ok. You’re ok. You’ve been attacked. You got hurt – but you’re going to be ok. She leaned into him, over him, he looked up at her.

Someone said to his Mum Will you sign this? He is going to require surgery.

His mother, bald from chemotherapy, looked even more ashen white that she usually did. Her lips were grey anyway. Her eyes were dark baggy circles. Kylo can remember when her eyes used to be lively and she used to prank him and tickle him and they’d play fight. I’ll catch you! I’ll catch you! she used to say.

After his dad took off, his Mum ended up having a baby with another man years later. She had always said it would only be him and her – together – but this other man came along and she lied to him. She ended up knocked up and all she did was spend time on ‘Baby’ Richie. He’s not even a fucking baby anymore, he’s fucking nine.

Then she got sick – really fucking sick and dying – so he had to forgive her or she’d fucking die. He didn’t forgive her really. He loved her but he was so angry.

It’s going to be alright Kylo.

She was using that voice that she used when she lied. That voice that she used when she got told about the cancer. When Dad fucking left them. When she got fucking pregnant. When there was no fucking presents at Christmas time.

It’s going to be alright Kylo.

Nothing is alright. Nothing is fucking even right. Everything is all fucking wrong. What even happened? At least on one level Kylo didn’t really want to live. Fuck all of this.

Kylo slumped back down – what was actually a couple of inches of flex in his back and stomach felt like a full sit-up, like the twentieth sit-up, but now he felt a sharp pain and he winced. His eyes rolled back involuntarily. Even though he wasn’t moving the pain didn’t stop.

Abdominal pain. Would you like something for that Kylo? the nurse didn’t wait for the reply, she just nodded at another nurse, and the other nurse started rummaging about in a cupboard over to one side. Kylo noticed that one nurse was kind of fit, the other nurse was a bit of a troll. He liked the fit nurse more, straight away, even like that, laid out on a bed, in a hospital. That’s when he realised that he wasn’t in his clothes – he was in some flimsy little gown and he was horrified. Who the fuck had undressed him – was it her or was it his Mum? Fuck didn’t I wet myself? he suddenly thought.

He tried not to think about the fit nurse. He instinctively put his hands over his genitals. There were no blankets, no nothing, he couldn’t hide behind anything. Anxiety shot through his head, his stomach, his bowels. It coursed through his forearms, he felt it burning in his chest. A pain like an electric shock went through his stomach.

As the nurse to his right moved towards him out of the corner of his eye he heard a voice Five hundred! You fucking get my five hundred he lurched away and he screamed No! tears went down his face. In one split second he realised it wasn’t real – it was a nurse – it was ok but he was going crazy. He was mental.

A young police officer came into the cubicle Can I talk to him quickly? he whispered.

We have to get him to theatre – he’s going to be under a general, he needs surgery for that wound pretty immediately.

I just want two minutes before he goes up?

I don’t know if he’s up to it.

Do you know who did this to you? the police officer spoke to him, regardless of the nurse.

No, no I don’t he said honestly.

Do you have any idea why this happened?

I just got jumped by the park, that’s all I know now he was lying.

Would you recognise the person who did this?

I don’t think so (another lie).

Could you try – we think we might know – do you think you could?

No... no comment.

The words just fell out of his mouth, and as they did someone coincidentally dropped a metal tray in the next cubicle.

The police officer, the nurse, his Mum all stopped for a heartbeat – it was like an X-ray - they looked into him, right inside him – and they were horrified by what he said.

What did you say? His Mum said – half shock and half anger What did you say young man?!

Where did you get that from? Where did that come from?!

The police officer’s brow furrowed, he looked to the side and made eye contact with the nurse. He clicked his pen and slid