Pubdate: Sun, Oct 3, 1999
Source: Mail on Sunday, The (UK)
Contact:  http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/

BOY, 11, FACES DRUGS DEATH THREAT

AN 11-year-old boy and his family were in hiding last night after receiving 
a death threat from a gang of drug dealers preying on primary-school children.

Robert Browne has been moved to a safe house by police after his 
grandmother named the man and woman supplying children - one of them aged 
only seven - with cannabis on a council estate in Sheffield.

Terrified grandmother Kathleen Browne now sleeps with a machete beside her 
bed after receiving a note which read: 'You are an evil old bag, you are 
going too far now and you better start looking over your shoulder because 
you are going to end up dead. This is not a wind-up it is for real, so stop 
your games or you will pay for them bad time, and your family will pay as 
well BITCH.'

Mrs Browne, 58, revealed the family's nightmare yesterday in response to 
Education Secretary David Blunkett's call at the Labour Party Conference 
for parents to take responsibility for their children's behaviour. 'When I 
saw David Blunkett spouting on about parents being to blame for unruly 
children it really angered me. Not all parents are to blame. I made a 
stand, and see where it got me,' she said.

'He should come back to his own city and find out what life is like here at 
the sharp end. I want him to come and visit me. I will tell him about 
reality, not party poilcy.'

At the safe house in Sheffield, Mr Blunkett's home city, Mrs Browne told 
how she informed on the dealers when she discovered her grandson, Robert, 
was taking drugs at the age of ten. She had become worried about his 
irrational behaviour and mood swings. When she confronted him, he admitted 
smoking cannabis. She immediately passed onto police the names of the man 
and woman Robert said were his suppliers on the notorious Pitsmoor estate, 
where he lived with his elder brother, Jonathan, 13, and Mrs Browne.

Mrs Browne has been the boys' legal guardian for eight years since her 
daughter, Christina, who had Jonathan at 14, became unable to cope. Three 
days after naming the dealers to the police, the Brownes received the death 
threat and had to be moved to a secret address.

Wiping away tears, Mrs Browne said: 'Robert's behaviour was going downhill. 
He had mood swings, he was either listless or fractious and violent. He was 
wanting to go out at all hours. Finally, I locked the door and asked him 
what he was up to.

'When he told me he was smoking marijuana, I was horrified. I asked him 
where he was getting it from, and he told me who it was. I was staggered to 
think a lad of ten had been smoking drugs for five months.

'I rang the police and told them exactly who was giving him drugs, what was 
happening and how young the children were. One was just seven years old. It 
seems they were even smoking it at primary school. Just what the hell is 
the world coming to?

'What happened to the dealers? Nothing. The police seem to think it's only 
cannabis, it doesn't matter. But we're told time and again that soft drugs 
lead to hard drugs. How soon would it have been before they were given an 
ecstasy tablet, and how soon before one of them ended up dead?

'Then the letter cane through my door... I was scared of us being attacked, 
but I would have fought the scum tooth and nail. I have a machete by my 
bedside and I would use it, too. I've even had other members of my family 
ringing me up, screaming "think of all the trouble you're causing". I tell 
them to go to hell, and I don't regret it.'

Mrs Browne, a widow who suffers from osteoarthritis, added: 'I've always 
done my best to bring the boys up properly, giving them a warm house and 
food on the table. I've had a firm hand, but then you have to around where 
we lived. I'd lived on Pitsmoor since I was a child and I've seen it go 
downhill.'

Sitting beside her, Robert, now 11, told how he had been lured into drugs: 
'I was offered it by an older kid who said, 'try this". We used to smoke 
the stuff at school, the guys who gave it us taught us how to roll a 
spliff. They were trying to get us on to other stuff, but I never tried 
anything other than marijuana.

'I didn't enjoy it much at first, but the other kids were doing it and I 
eventually started to want it. I was smoking it every night, but now I 
don't want it any more.'

Mrs Browne now wants to meet Mr Blunkett: 'I want to ask him what he thinks 
life should be like for children on these estates. Let's have some money to 
build youth clubs. Let's have some money for policemen to clear out all the 
drugs. Above all, let's have some action. For when there's kids as young as 
10 starting on drugs, what hope is there for the future?'

South Yorkshire Police would not comment on the case for operational 
reasons, but spokesman Jim Greensmith said: 'Drug dealing is despicable. 
Drug dealing involving children is even more despicable. But, 
unfortunately, children are targeted throughout the country.'

Pitsmoor is a run-down estate a mile from the city centre. Some residents 
who bought homes there say they cannot move because the police warn 
potential buyers how bad the area is. One mother said: 'Every kid can tell 
you where to go for drugs, they've grown up with it. It's a fact of life.'

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