'Huddersfield has shocking county lines problem but remarkable resilience'

Family homes invaded by drug dealers, children as young as 13 bringing knives to school to protect themselves and teenagers moved into care homes are just some of the things occurring in pockets of the town, said Annabel Deas.

The broadcaster, who works for the BBC, said how one 17-year-old boy wandered into a stranger's house asking for help after he was stabbed - only to be charged with a cleaning bill for spilling blood on the carpet.

Ms Deas spent a year in Huddersfield, immersing herself in the community, after she noticed an alarming rate of young people being involved in gun and knife crime from reading local news reports.

The journalist has produced the seven-episode podcast, Hope High, focusing on one school in the town's suburb of Fartown, as well as following the families of four boys whose lives are affected by ongoing gang, drugs and violent crime.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, Ms Deas said: "I was seeing a lot of headlines about gun crime in Huddersfield, many of which seemed to involve children. But children just don't end up in gangs aged 11 or 12. They're still innocents.

"The issue of course is not specific to Huddersfield, and it is not representative at all of the town in general. This is happening in pockets."

Based with the BBC in Manchester, she moved to the West Yorkshire town for 12 months in order to spend time investigating the issue in-depth, speaking to teachers, community leaders and families. Gang crime, she said, is a problem "too complex" to summarise in one story.

Ms Deas was in contact with staff at the North Huddersfield Trust School, where many pupils are vulnerable to grooming or "feel they need to protect themselves with knives".

"The things I came across in that pocket of Huddersfield are shocking," she added.

"But there are pockets like that across the country, and this is just another example.

"One child had been moved to a care home for children hundreds of miles away from the town for his own protection because there were dangers around his life.

"I spoke to the mother of one of the boys. She said to me at point she had let dangerous people come into her house, including drug dealers.

"She was a single mother with children aged between two and 13. How she has to live is really quite shocking.

"I thought, 'why on earth would you do that?' But this is a single mum who lives on an estate where she feels unsafe. The whole system is broken so she thinks that by letting people into her house they will protect her family if needs be."

Hope High opens its first episode meeting the mother's son, a young boy named Daniel who has been caught bringing a knife into school to feel safe.

"He doesn't use the knife," Ms Deas says, "but months earlier he witnessed one of his friends being involved in a brutal stabbing on the street".

"The 17-year-old victim had wandered into someone's house on the street, bleeding everywhere, asking for help, and they made him pay for the carpet to be cleaned.

"This had a profound effect on him. He brought the knife with him because he was paranoid that people would come onto him on his way into, or back, from school."

The first episode also meets Maureen, whose grandson Aaron was groomed by county lines gangs who bought him Hugo Boss and Armani tracksuits while insidiously tricking him into selling drugs and carrying firearms.

Maureen tells the podcast: “He was a young happy boy at school until he got bullied from a young age, and then he tended to pick up anger issues.

"Then he tended to be off on his own, in a world of his own - it just went from one stage to another. It spiralled out of control he got very aggressive, he got very nasty, he started to move within gang crime and then all of a sudden he’s been involved with firearms – he’s been shot at and he’s 15 years of age."

Aaron was later moved into a shelter for young people in another location out of concerns for his safety.

In 2019, there were 675 reported drugs incidents and 208 of weapon possession in Huddersfield, according to West Yorkshire Police.

Despite this, Ms Deas says there is "a remarkable resilience" in the community blighted by crime.

"North Huddersfield Trust School is remarkable at supporting the children.

"I went in to find out how the schools are dealing with the issue. While I was there, I really couldn't keep up with the shootings. Growing up in an area where these incidents are happening everyday must have enormous effects on a child.

"The role of the school and what the teachers are doing to keep children in school, in giving them an education and a route out of these lives, is phenomenal.

"There is still so much hope."

Hope High is available to listen to on the BBC Sounds app from today, Tuesday March 17.