DS shown drug video - county lines and how to handle?

[HeathersFeathers]

DS said ‘I need to tell you something but you must promise not to tell the school’ .
Today during class, two boys ‘Z’ and ‘X’ were jesting around, posturing/showing off trying to establish a pecking order. My DS is not friends with, but sits next to child Z.
Child X said I’ve got year 11 friends who can sort you out’ to child Z. Then Z said ‘well I know people in these circles so you can’t touch me’ and proceeded to show X and my DS a video of himself with lots of bags of weed lined up on a table wrapped in cling film and was saying to the camera, this one is x grams, this one x grams etc. like a sales video . (To be clear - Z was in the video talking to the camera) Z told my DS , he was going to save up to buy a ‘scaler’ something along those lines, DS not sure what drug paraphernalia looks like or names for it. DS said how much is one of those and what’s it for . Z said ‘it’s a machine to roll joints with’. They are 12.
DS has begged me not to tell the school as apparently only himself, child X and another person have been shown this video. DS is scared it could be traced back to him telling someone.
What should I do with this information? I mean, I know what I should do, but I don’t know that I can trust the school to handle
this properly and protect my DS .
DS has had trouble in the past from tough kids at this school, I raised concerns and DS said it caused him some problems, ended up with a smack in the mouth. ( inner city school that has its fair share of issues).
can’t help but think it’s county lines. Obv told DS to stay away from this kid.

Until your son is coerced into doing the same thing because he's too scared about the consequences of telling anyone...and 3 months later he's dragged into it all and you're faced with your son being withdrawn and in trouble. And then you find out that people knew about it and did fuck all to help.

Snap, I agree with you 100%
Do nothing @HeathersFeathers

Which is more likely to happen if he stops talking to you
Which is more likely to happen if you do the one thing he has asked you not to

Of course it could be dried parsley.

But it is likely cannabis and it is likely that the 12 yo in question is vulnerable and has been coerced and may be forced to recruit others.

And what better way to do that than swear other bits to secrecy and fear of retribution and in a situation where adults are fully aware and did fuck all.

Of the boy didn't actually want anything done, he wouldn't have told anyone.

But fine, let's all turn a blind eye to 12 year old boys caught up in the drugs trade. 👌and just hope and pray your child doesn't get drawn in...

Good Lord, the amount of people saying do nothing!

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility!

Here’s what you do OP; ring the school, tell the gatekeeper that you need to speak to the safeguarding lead as you have reason to believe a pupil is involved with drug supply. You can mention the pupils name right there if needed. Chances are the Safeguarding lead won’t be immediately available. Arrange a time to call back; tell them you’re a parent but will be remaining anonymous due to a significant threat of retribution for your child.

Even something reported by an anonymous person can be the piece of the jigsaw needed to get this child the help needed.
And that’s the thing, they are still a child. They need help. They are a victim.

People fake stuff all the time, more so now.

The drummer of guns n roses used to swing a bottle of vodka during gigs, the bottle was full of water but the audience didn't think that, the band switched it for real vodka one day, he still drank it and played that gig.

It could be parsley.
He could be at the beginning of being mixed up with gangs,
It could be an elder siblings stuff.

On the "evidence" of one video waved around I don't think I would do anything at this point.

Especially if my 12 year old had asked me not to.

I worked in a residential setting for teenagers in the care system. Drug dealing and county lines was rife and this was a small town, not inner city. Every single teen I worked with had a social worker and police involvement and still it didn’t stop.

I saw two teen boys stabbed with screwdrivers for “grassing”. I have been in the service when it was on full lockdown because someone was on their way with a gun in another drugs dispute. We are talking 15 and 16 year old boys.

If it’s county lines, they have much bigger men behind them. I know what the right thing to do is, I’m trained in it. It’s drilled into me, but without a doubt I’d protect my son over anybody else in this situation.

Ok. As long as you are fine when it comes to light that when your child is in a similar situation, that other people were fully aware and chose to do absolutely nothing 👍

I have no idea whether you should report or not - my instinct would be to keep quiet in the short term at least. My biggest concern would be for my own child.

However, to those saying report to the school because of all their safeguarding knowledge and training and experience:

When I was in year 9 I had to be supervised by a member of the pastoral team at lunchtime, I had an eating disorder and I was supervised until they were satisfied I'd eaten something and then I was released for the rest of lunch break.

I ended up getting quite friendly with pastoral care person I was sent to which resulted in her giving me all the gossip about which teachers were having affairs etc and eventually she let it slip that my friend who had recently had an abortion had in fact never been pregnant, she'd lied about the whole thing for attention

The pastoral care "professional" at my school told me this

Yes reporting to the school could be useful if they're competent but do you know for a fact that they're competent enough to handle a situation like this with the necessary sensitivity?

There's no way I'd risk it

You were in Year 9 a long time ago.

Things have changed.

Do nothing the school will probably be useless and the police even more so. Keep your son away from the kid and hope he gets moved on

I would stay the hell out of it. My little brother got involved with this stuff, pissed someone off and ended up with a small gang breaking into his home and beating him black and blue with bats in front of his friends who could do nothing but wait for it to finish. You don’t mess with these people.

@00100001 so now every single person working in every single school is totally competent at safeguarding and you know this for a fact because you've met them all?

Also, how long ago was I in year 9? Clearly you know how old I am

That's all beside the point. OP if you're in any doubt at all that your son would be safe at school if the child in question worked out your son had told someone then wait before doing any going

I'd stay out of it, the majority of them do it because they are from a family that drug deal

Watch the BBC TV show the Outlaws on iplayer if you want to see how serious County lines are and how retribution is a real thing.

Tell him to stay away and keep his mouth shut. Protect him.

Change schools, if you can.
Agree with those saying that reporting it doesn't make it stop anyway. I used to be an AA for young people and it was the exact same faces being pulled into the police station every single time I was on. They all had family, social workers and schools who knew exactly what was going on and it didn't make a jot of difference. Even the ones who were sent to units just climbed out of the windows and fucked off with their 'mates'.
Protect your son, get him the hell out of there.

I wouldn't do anything. My priority would always be to keep my own child safe. Yes the video probably has been shown to other kids, but it's just not a risk I'd take.

I think people saying report it have their heart in the right place, and in an ideal world with a guarantee of no consequence to your own child it would be the right thing to do, but that's not real life

To privatelyliving - not saying children selling weed obviously! But plenty of older teens/adults that sell without it being gang related, which he could have got mixed up in! Not saying it's not a worry but to jump to county lines/big gangs over one video of him with a couple of bags of weed seems an exaggeration to me

Well, having worked with lots of teens who have access to weed one way or another, I'd be amazed if it's not county lines related.

Does the school have an anonymous reporting platform e.g. SHARP? If so, I would consider using that to report the sharing of a video in X lesson by Z child. You don't need to implicate your DS in the report; channel your inner 12-yr-old and make the report from the perspective of a nearby child in the class who overheard the conversation, or as a child who heard students discussing the video after class e.g. 'In maths with Ms Smith today, Z was on his phone and showing videos. Afterwards I heard other people talking about it and saying Z was going to buy a scaler and other drugs stuff because that's what his video was about. I don't think Ms Smith saw Z on his phone but loads of other people did.'

You wouldn't receive any follow-up from an anonymous report (you wouldn't even if it wasn't anonymous) but at least you would know you'd given the school an opportunity to look into what's going on for Z. Don't tell your DS you've submitted an anonymous report then he won't be put in a difficult position.

But OP doesn't actually know what the situation is.

One video that could be fake has been waved around.

Our teenage boys would have, and have with dodgy WhatsApp images in the past, said to the 12 yr old "oh mate that's not good"

They would have had a go at asking their classmate if everything was ok. That's where you start not with the police.

You can teach your kids to be concerned about their peers whether it does them any good or not.

And that's who our teenage boys are growing up as, so yeah when they start drug running we will sort it out. I guess we just pay off their drug taking debts to get them out of the clutches of the gangs they haven't joined yet.

All these posts saying anonymous report: it will still lead back to her ds if he's only 1 of 2 people who have seen it.

If the boy is sharing it in a class of 30 kids after openly bragging about drugs...he's shown it to other people and other people know

Yep, I’d keep well out of it, keep my son out of it and do nothing.

The kid is question is not going to be miraculously ‘saved’ by social services or
the police or the school. He probably has a family of dealers and parents who don’t give a shit and is already enmeshed in that lifestyle.