INVESTIGATION: On the line - the loophole

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Story – INVESTIGATION: On the line - the loophole

Podcast: The Story (The Times) Episode Title: INVESTIGATION: On the line - the loophole (On the Line, Episode Three) Air Date: March 23, 2026 Host: David Collins (Sunday Times Northern Editor) Main Guests: Sgt. Mike Brocken, Det. Sgt. Amy Foster, Police Constable Phil Hallam, DI Cheryl Quinn, and District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin

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Episode Overview

This episode unpacks an alarming trend at the heart of county lines drug operations: children, some as young as 14, are not only running drugs but increasingly taking control of entire drug lines. The episode explores how legal protections designed to help victims of exploitation are being manipulated—intentionally or otherwise—to shield young offenders from prosecution, inadvertently encouraging criminal organisations to put children in positions of power.

The investigation, grounded in a year-long embed with North Yorkshire Police, spotlights the operational, cultural, and legal "loophole" that may be fuelling this disturbing evolution in organised drug crime.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The Rise of Child Line-Holders

• Case Introduction: The police arrest 18-year-old Solomon Samrawi in Leeds (01:12). He confesses to dealing and is sent to a young offenders institution.
• Fast Forward: A year later, Samrawi is arrested again, this time connected to York’s Operation Titan. He’s believed to run the “SAM line.” (02:26, 02:52)
• Key Insight: Even when top-level offenders are caught, the drug line doesn’t die—it goes quiet, then resumes. “The SAM line went completely silent... [then] started sending out messages once again.” (04:41, David Collins)

2. How County Lines Work & Their Expansion

• Mechanics: “Sam was then one of 20 county lines running into the city selling crack cocaine and heroin via text message.” (03:11, David Collins)
• Evolving Tactics: Both the SAM and Diego lines recruited minors to transfer risk of arrest and violence. (03:41)
• Rapid Growth: The number of bulk text message drug offers shot up from 25 to 403 in five months—equating to potential weekly profits of £6,000, or over £300,000/year. (06:14–07:49, Mike Brocken & David Collins)

3. Children as Victims and Perpetrators

• Targeting Vulnerable Children: “They’re seen as disposable assets.... Human beings at the end of the day, vulnerable at that....” (09:44, DS Amy Foster)
• Caring but Ineffective Interventions: Multi-agency efforts focus on safeguarding, but kids resist help, not seeing themselves as victims—often due to the allure or necessity of money: “...they actually feel like they're being looked after because my mama only gave me a tenor.” (17:20, DI Cheryl Quinn)
• Notable Case: “Usain,” a 14-year-old, recruited after being left in the UK by his mother, is swept into county lines. He accrues a £1,000 drug debt after losing stock—a classic exploitation trap. (12:13, 14:43, Cheryl Quinn)

4. The “Loophole”—Children Running Lines

• Unprecedented Situation: Police are shocked to find not just youth runners, but teens holding the lines. (17:36, David Collins; 18:23–19:00, Cheryl Quinn and Amy Foster)
• Wider Pattern: York alone identified four out of 13 lines held by children. Nationally, officers report seeing this more often. (19:00, Amy Foster; 19:14, Mike Brocken)
• Why It Happens: “As a child, they can very quickly say, I’ve been exploited. Even if they haven’t, they can still try and use that as a defence.” (19:22, Mike Brocken)

5. The Modern Slavery Act and Legal Tangle

• How the Law Works:
  • The 2015 Act mandates referrals via the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for suspected exploited children, whether or not the child consents. (22:24, 24:25, Rachel Baldwin)
  • Section 45 Defence: Allows those accused of a crime to argue that their actions resulted from exploitation. For children, there’s no need to prove compulsion—just potential exploitation suffices. (25:53, Rachel Baldwin)
  • CPS Guidance: After 2023 revisions, more active checking of "exploitation" claims. (30:19, Rachel Baldwin)
• Law Enforcement Frustrations:
  • Sgt. Mike Brocken: “It’s a big frustration... not necessarily how it was intended when it was brought into legislation.” (27:19)
  • Criminals exploit the protections, recruiting kids to run lines with the promise of lesser or no consequences. (28:44, Mike Brocken)
• Abuse of the System: “Section 45 defence can be open to abuse by unscrupulous individuals and criminal gangs who exploit the existence of the defence....” (29:12, Cheryl Quinn)
• The “County Lines Defence”: The widespread use of modern slavery protection for drug runners is now infamous among both criminals and law enforcement. (29:49, Rachel Baldwin)

6. Is It Working? Two Sides of the Justice Coin

• Prosecution View: Rachel Baldwin, CPS, says improved guidance and tougher evidence checks mean the Section 45 defence is not a “get out of jail free card.” (30:11–30:33)
  • Example: A repeat-offending teenage line-holder—helped once as a victim, prosecuted the second time after refusing support. (32:24–33:49)
• Police View: Mike Brocken sees the same type of situation as a system failure—support is extended, but reoffending continues as teens exploit the loophole. (34:14–35:58)
  • “Maybe I’m naive, but to me he does not present or sound like someone who has been exploited. He’s using it as a loophole.” (35:27, Brocken)

7. The Difficulty of a Perfect System

• Practical Problems: Case delays (up to 14 months) due to bottlenecks in handling NRM paperwork, and the balance between protecting genuine victims and inadvertently empowering exploiters. (35:58)

• Systemic Catch-22: While legislation is well-intentioned and necessary, criminals are adaptive—fixing one problem may lead to another. (36:35–37:17, Rachel Baldwin)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “As a child, they can very quickly say, 'I've been exploited.' Even if they haven't, they can still try and use that as a defence.”
  — Sgt. Mike Brocken [19:22]

• “They're seen as disposable assets. They can just be easily replaced. You know, they're human beings at the end of the day. Vulnerable at that.”
  — DS Amy Foster [09:44]

• “Section 45 defence can be open to abuse by unscrupulous individuals and criminal gangs who exploit the existence of the defence to assist them in recruiting and coercing others...”
  — DI Cheryl Quinn [29:12]

• “For a child, there’s no requirement of compulsion... And that's a really big distinction because that's where quite a lot of the adult Section 45 cases will fail.”
  — Rachel Baldwin [25:53]

• “You get all these kids that we're trying to manage and safeguard and stop having contact. But when you speak to them, they say that we're not being exploited because making money, they're not in school, they're not in education, but he's putting £250 in the pocket a week.”
  — DI Cheryl Quinn [16:57]

• “I think it's really important that the real victims of trafficking and modern day slavery are protected, but it's also really important that people that aren't are prosecuted. And it's a really difficult balance to find.”
  — Rachel Baldwin [32:03]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |------------|------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:12 | Introduction: Solomon Samrawi case/Journey into County Lines | | 03:11 | County Lines overview and direct competition in York | | 06:14 | Volume and economics of bulk drug messaging | | 09:00 | Child exploitation: safeguarding and police approaches | | 12:13 | The story of “Usain,” a 14-year-old exploited child | | 16:57 | Children’s perception: Not exploited, just earning | | 17:36 | Discovery of children as line holders | | 19:22 | Legal defense & rise of the “loophole” | | 22:24 | The Modern Slavery Act & National Referral Mechanism | | 25:53 | Section 45 defence and prosecutorial challenge | | 29:12 | Abuse of the Section 45/“County lines defence” | | 30:19 | Changes to CPS guidance/prosecution improvements | | 34:14 | Judicial and police disagreement on outcomes | | 36:35 | Broader debate: can legislation ever be watertight? |

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Conclusion

This episode exposes a deeply troubling shift in the battle against county lines: as protections for exploited children increase, so too does the criminal sophistication in misusing these defences. Police frustration is palpable as more cases arise of children running entire drug networks under the cloak of victimhood, challenging the legal system's ability to balance safeguarding with effective prosecution.

The next episode promises even more direct insight, featuring interviews with children caught up in county lines, shedding personal light on why and how exploitation happens.

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Transcript

[David Collins]

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[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

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[David Collins]

From the Times and Sunday Times, this is the story. It's October 2023. Police officers are patrolling the east of Leeds when they spot someone in a balaclava. It's autumn and a bit cold, but this, this is suspicious. The figure starts to run before they duck into a shop and remove the disguise, only to be turfed out immediately because shop staff recognize him. In fact, he's already been banned. 18 year old Solomon Samvari is arrested. Police find roughly 400 pounds of crack cocaine and heroin on him and a phone which they will later tell the court, shows clear evidence of drug dealing. He admits supplying class A drugs and is sent to a young offenders institution. Fast forward just over a year to January 2025 and once again there was

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

an arrest of someone called Solomon Samwari,

[David Collins]

again on drug related charges. And this time police officers 25 miles away in York paid attention. They'd recently launched Operation Titan, a force wide effort to tackle county lines drug dealing and Sam Rawi had already caught their eye.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

The belief was that he was in the early days the person in charge of the Sam line.

[David Collins]

Sam was then one of 20 county lines running into the city selling crack cocaine and heroin via text message.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

It was one of the first lines along with the Diego line that brought with it the most amount of risk and was probably one of the main reasons that Titan was formed because early on it was identified that Sam and Diego were warring groups in West Yorkshire. They were both trying to establish themselves in York. And with that, it brought risk.

[David Collins]

Both groups were getting young people from the neighbouring county to run drugs into York, passing the risk of violence and arrest onto them, while the line holder stayed at home. In the weeks after Solomon Samrawi was arrested, however, the SAM line went completely silent. There were suddenly no offers of drugs for sale. For officers on the front line of this problem, like Mike Brocken, hope starts to creep in. Until roughly a month later, when the SAM line started sending out messages once again. A user texted you. Still on the reply,

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active.

[David Collins]

Sambrari was in custody. Someone else had to be holding the line.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

Back on both 24, seven fast drops on best of both. 2 for 15, 4 for 30.

[David Collins]

Offering deals. Trying to establish themselves in the city, police began to investigate. What they found would shock them. It wouldn't just reveal how much these lines rely on children to deliver drugs. It would suggest children were taking control. I'm David Collins, the Northern editor at the Sunday Times. Last year, North Yorkshire Police gave me unprecedented access into their attempts to tackle county lines. This is the story of how York fought back and the challenges still ahead. The story today on the Line, Episode three, the Loophole. In the first few months of 2025, police watched as the SAM line slowly built up its business, sending bulk text messages to drug users in York.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

So our numbers down at the bottom indicates over a weekly period, how many bulk message events have been recorded from the line.

[David Collins]

Sergeant Mike Brocken is the head of Operation Sentry, the team tasked with disrupting organised crime in North Yorkshire. He's walking me through a spreadsheet of data.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

For instance, in the week of the 14th of July, the SAM line have sent out 403 bulk messages. So either 403 different customers or a number of customers over the week in total have received 403 messages. So ultimately, there have been that many numbers of offer to supply Class A drugs.

[David Collins]

A huge increase from the 25 messages sent to users in a similar week five months earlier.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

What we're seeing there is that the customer base that the line has is ever growing. So in your community of drug users in your city, they might say, for instance, the Samline product is particularly good at the minute, or it's particularly cheap, or it might be the only line that's active at the minute. So then they're like, oh, well, can you send them my number so then I can know when they're operating again? That also might be. He's Been able to increase the frequency at which he's been able to offer to supply as well shift more commodity over a shorter period of time. So therefore he can increase his profits.

[David Collins]

And what sort of profits are we talking? So if we've got 403 messages going out in July, for example, and he's offering deals like two for 15 quid,

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

so if each of those offers to supply was taken up, we're looking in the region of 6,000 pounds.

[David Collins]

And how large is that compared to other kind of lines?

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

Particularly looking at their data, that looks like a very busy week for them and that would be a very healthy amount for one week. So you wouldn't probably normally see those kind of levels. It would probably be about half that. I would have thought for your well established lines and then your new up and coming lines, you might be starting at maybe even a quarter of that.

[David Collins]

Replicate the sand line's busy week in its more than £300,000 a year. Make no mistake, this is big business. Voice notes from other cases reveal one person offering to sell control of a county line for tens of thousands of pounds. And while a dealer might start out small, potentially working on their own, as

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

he starts to establish himself as a line in York, he gets to a point where he can take maybe more of a backseat role. And that's when the recruitment of the children start, starts, which then can almost exponentially increase his ability to meet demand because he's got more people working for him.

[David Collins]

As children are recruited, there is a whole new layer of concern for police. And another team two floors below Mike's office become involved. A team who come at the problem of county lines from a completely different angle.

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

We get a very different reaction with the kids to say, for instance, response going out in uniform. They just clam up, don't they? And they won't speak to them.

[Police Constable Phil Hallam]

But kids are quite violent or they've got. They hate the police. But we sometimes see a different side to the kids because we're not coming in when they've done something wrong.

[David Collins]

Detective Sergeant Amy Foster and Police Constable Phil Hallam are part of the child exploitation team. They work alongside social care, health and education to support children identified as being at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation, which includes being involved in county lines. Because children can be threatened into running drugs or violently robbed by other gangs.

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

They're seen as. And that's why they're used, because they're seen as disposable assets. They can just be easily replaced. You know, they're human beings at the end of the day. Vulnerable at that. So for us it's really sad because, you know, the damage is already done and some of the violence and the threats and coercion that they've been victim to, that will live with them forever.

[David Collins]

The child exploitation team is led by Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn.

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

And I think the highs for me are when these guys have been working with a child for months and months and we finally get a breakthrough or the child will finally disclose after months of, I'm not being exploited, I'm not being exploited, I don't know what you're talking about. Why is everybody concerned? And then the penny drops on the

[David Collins]

wall of a busy hub where calls are coming in from different services. There's a list of the operations. Cheryl's team has run some of them from last year.

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

So you'll see, like, I had a bicycle up Snow. They were like Christmas themed. Then I moved through the year, I

[David Collins]

was going to say. So we're looking at a board right now in the operations hub and we've got Operation Reindeer, we've got Operation Sledge, Operation Seal, Operation Snow.

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

They're my Christmassy ones.

[David Collins]

I'm guessing they were over. Yeah. Like November, December time.

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

Yeah. Seal was in relation to the coast. That's why that was there.

[David Collins]

Makes sense. Yeah. But it's Operation Envy which started to unpick the newly restarted SAM line. It was created to support a 14 year old boy the team had been working with for a couple of years. We're going to call him Usain. And police first met him by chance.

[Police Constable Phil Hallam]

It's kind of by accident, wasn't it?

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

Yeah. So that child was involved in a road traffic. Yeah. Knocked over by a bus, I think. And then it quite quickly became apparent that he had no parent and nobody to kind of vouch for him.

[David Collins]

Police had attended a regular call out, reports of a boy clipped by a bus and they were looking to get his details.

[Police Constable Phil Hallam]

That cop was trying to chase it up and go, well, I need to speak to him and make sure he wants to make a complaint. Just like very basic stuff. But it came apparent, actually. Well, no one knows who this child is.

[David Collins]

He didn't attend school, had no documentation, wasn't related to the person he was living with.

[Police Constable Phil Hallam]

So we asked the person they were living with and the child to come here and we put the child into police protection.

[David Collins]

Police discovered Usain had come to the UK with his mother when he was 12. They'd arrived at Gatwick as though they were simply coming on holiday, but she'd returned home Alone and he had been left with a family friend and then,

[Police Constable Phil Hallam]

yeah, his mum left and then moved up to York.

[David Collins]

In York, however, those Usain was living with had associations with drug dealing. There were clear risks he'd be swept up into that world and obviously with

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

regards to him, he's so vulnerable and he's got nothing else in his life, so why wouldn't he want to be part of a family that is going to put their arms around him and take care of him?

[Police Constable Phil Hallam]

Had he never been fully integrated into a normal life here, he'd always been kept quiet and not going to school or integrating with wider society entirely alone.

[David Collins]

They worried he'd do anything to help those who had offered him friendship, support, money to live on. Officers wanted Usain to share details of his life so they could help him avoid criminal exploitation. Amy describes meeting Usain when he came into the police station after an incident in his care home, surrounded by support workers.

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

And he just looked really lost. I felt really sorry for him, but he. It didn't give anything away. Closed book, which is really difficult because obviously when you're trying to work with a kid like that and you want to get the information from them to help them, but they can't see that. You just feel like you're just going around in circles because again, they don't see themselves as victims. So how are you going to be able to help them in any way, shape or form?

[David Collins]

Anyway, over time, the team watched as Usain began to be involved in petty criminality, with bike thefts and things like

[Police Constable Phil Hallam]

that coming to police attention. And the concern there was, is this something he's doing because he wants to do this, or is he being told to do it or is he being influenced to do it?

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

He wasn't saying much, he wasn't disclosing, but the intelligence was coming in that he was traveling, that he was traveling by taxi, that he was potentially involving other young people in his friends group.

[David Collins]

All signs Usain may have become wrapped up in a drug gang.

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

We started doing some work around the child and we had a little bit of a breakthrough in that he made a very panicked disclosure to his youth justice officer, basically saying he was involved in a county line.

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

We became aware one day that he was potentially in debt for a lot of money to a particular person, as he'd potentially lost a considerable amount of drugs that day.

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

He had brought an amount of drugs to York and he'd seen a police officer and panicked and tried to hide the drugs under a bush. And then when he came back the drugs had disappeared.

[David Collins]

Around £1,000 worth of drugs gone.

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

So he now owes his recruiter, his exploiter, his perpetrator, the amount that those drugs were worth to him and he is now in debt and they're going to seek to recuperate that.

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

And I think he panicked. So obviously we became aware of this information and one of our team went straight out to try and speak to him. Obviously quite closed because of the, the concern of the repercussions and, and although it wasn't completely closed off, he was still very, very reluctant to pass us information.

[David Collins]

It's common for drug runners to be more afraid of speaking to the police than the consequences of breaking the law. The threat of debt, of violence, the risk of being termed a grass, can all stop young people from sharing information. The York team met to discuss how they could support Usain.

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

The weekend passed and the Monday came completely closed off, didn't want to speak to us. So in that time we believe that the exploiter had managed to get back in and he was telling us that he then had a plan to repay the debt and it was all fine. As you can imagine, we were extremely worried because what does that look like? What does he have to do to pay that debt back?

[David Collins]

Usain had been working for the Sam line, the very drugs operation which had been building up its business in York, offering deals to entice new customers. And knowing a 14 year old was in this situation, North Yorkshire Police prioritised their investigation. It revealed five more teenagers, three other boys and two girls, also connected to the same county line. Cheryl Quinn describes it as a nightmare

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

because you've got all these kids that we're trying to manage and safeguard and stop having contact. But when you speak to them, they say that we're not being exploited because making money, they're not in school, they're not in education, but he's putting two hundred and fifty quid in the pocket a week.

[David Collins]

Is that how much they were earning? Two hundred and fifty a week, roughly.

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

So they don't feel like they're being exploited, they actually feel like they're being looked after because my mama only gave me a tenor.

[David Collins]

While Cheryl's team worked to support the children upstairs, Mike Brocken's Operation Sentry team prioritized the work to trace the line holder, the person in charge, the one asking these children to do this work. They arrested a suspect and here is where for the first time I am shocked because he was just 17, another child, not just suspected of dealing or running drugs, but accused of holding the line arranging children only a few years younger to carry out that work. I've never heard of anything like that and I'm just letting it sink in when Cheryl stops me.

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

I know you think that up Envy is unusual, don't you?

[David Collins]

Because do you not think it is?

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

I know because I've got enough one in hamburger that's got a kid. Yeah.

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

How old's 16?

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

16. Holding a line.

[David Collins]

16 holding a line?

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

We believe so. We've got information that he's running the harvest line running from Wakefield into Harrogate and it's one of ours that we're supposed to be trying to work with for exploitation.

[David Collins]

In fact, if we go through Cheryl's list of operations so up envy op

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

sledge was a child holding a lie op seal was a troll holding a lie op snow. So out of that list, four.

[David Collins]

All out of 13?

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

Yeah.

[David Collins]

Four children suspected of running entire drugs networks themselves. In the case of the SAM line, Mike Brock and's team made the arrest

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

from Speaking to colleagues around the country is something they are now seeing more

[David Collins]

and more often and he thinks there's a reason.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

As a child, they can very quickly say, I've been exploited. Even if they haven't, they can still try and use that as a defence

[David Collins]

because here we enter a legal quagmire. British law aims to protect those who have been exploited by criminals. Its protections for children are particularly strong. Yet Mike believes the law itself is encouraging gangs to recruit children into more senior positions in their drug Networks. The reason? 16 and 17 year olds are being found holding the line. We'll explain why after the break.

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[David Collins]

le tu Francais, Hablas espanol? Parle italiano.

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[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

OP Sledge was a child holding a lie. OP Seal was a child holding a lie. Up snow. So out of that list, four

[David Collins]

In York, police believe an increasing number of those in charge of County Lines drugs operations are children. And when that happens, the job of frontline officers like Sergeant Mike Brocken become even more complex.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

At the minute, rightly or wrongly, every child should automatically be first off. Considered, are they a victim of exploitation?

[David Collins]

Mike is talking about the Modern Slavery act, which when it was first introduced in 2015, gave first responders like the police a duty to notify the home office of any suspected victim of exploitation. And to understand why this can be a roadblock to police trying to tackle County Lines, we first have to explain how it works. We're at the Crown Prosecution Service offices in Sheffield. It's very rainy day. The offices are on a hilly street. Of course, because it's Sheffield, it's got to be hilly. To help, we've come to the home of the lawyers who try and secure convictions for County Lines dealers. Hello. Oh yeah, great. Sign in here. District Crown prosecutor Rachel Baldwin walks us through a maze of corridors. She explains the Modern Slavery act covers anyone threatened or deceived into providing a service, an exploitation at the heart of how County Lines operate.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

The whole setup of a County Lines gang is that people are being directed to behave in a certain way. They use people's need to belong. They expose people in society that can be quite vulnerable, that don't always have a support network. And they groom them into their way of working in the sense of they'll give them money, shoes, nice things to have. And these can be people that have never really had very much and don't really have anyone. And all of a sudden they offer them a sense of belonging.

[David Collins]

Just think about how 14 year old Usain found himself involved in a County Line's drug gang. When the police come across anyone who could have been exploited this way, they have to fill out a form to make a referral into the National Referral Mechanism or nrm.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

If it's an adult, there has to be consent to go into that mechanism. Where there's a child, there doesn't need to be consent. So if they have concerns about a child, they'll simply make the referral.

[David Collins]

And that could be from the child saying, suggesting they've been exploited, or even a suspicion that they have been a suspicion.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

Because I think the truth is that there's quite a few people that don't know they're being exploited. So it really requires the professionals that are involved in that case to think this is someone that's a potential victim. They don't have to be certain at that point it's potential.

[David Collins]

That referral goes to a specialised team at the Home Office.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

They'll make what's called a reasonable grounds decision. That decision is on the basis of I suspect, but I cannot prove before

[David Collins]

they collect more information and come to a final conclusive grounds decision. If positive, the Home Office believes, on the balance of probabilities, that person was a victim of modern slavery. They're given support from accommodation to understanding the benefit system. But with it, anyone suspected of committing a crime can also run what's known as a Section 45 defence, using the collection of evidence to argue they are not guilty because their actions were a consequence of exploitation. The CPS can even decide at this point it would not be in the public interest to prosecute them. And for children, this argument is even easier.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

We have a four stage test when we're deciding whether someone should be prosecuted that's potentially a victim of modern slavery. Stage three of that test is, is there clear evidence of a statutory Defence under section 45 for an adult? That requirement is the person that commits the offence is compelled to do so. For a child, there's no requirement of compulsion and. And that's quite a big distinction.

[David Collins]

So whether they were compelled or not, they can still have the defence.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

Yeah, and, and that is a really big distinction because that's where quite a lot of the adult section 45 cases will fail. It's all about agency over your own actions and can you make a choice to do something different? And I think the children not having the requirement to be compelled shows the difference in thinking and the law recognising that people under 18 are still children and developing and developing the way that they think.

[David Collins]

We know two of the teenagers arrested by North Yorkshire Police on suspicion of operating a drugs line have already received a positive conclusive grounds decision indicating they are a victim of exploitation. For Mike Brocken, who leads a team responsible for keeping County Line's gangs out of his community, that can be frustrating.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

It's a big frustration and I think the whole NRM mechanism and how it's been used is not necessarily how it was intended when it was brought into legislation. There are clearly children involved in drug supply that have indeed been exploited to be involved in drug supply. But when you have an individual who has been involved in drug supply for a number of years and then they're on the cusp of adulthood and have the ability to make those decisions themselves, as in they're far less impressionable, it's more difficult to kind of go, well, you may well have been exploited at the start when you were 12, 13, to become involved in this world, but you've had so much opportunity and intervention from support services, whether that be the police, social care or your other drug intervention work, you are still now choosing to go down this route. It's then really difficult to still see those people as victims when actually they've made a choice to continue to supply drugs. They're not being exploited, they are now the exploiters.

[David Collins]

Mike believes gangs are using the protections afforded by the Modern Slavery act to recruit children higher up in the operation, fueling this growing number of teenagers running lines.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

Your organized crime group effectively see them as a. Well, it's almost a bit of a win win. Like we can say to them, you run our business. Even if you get arrested and charged, there's a every chance that you may get off with it because, well, you're a child.

[David Collins]

In 2023, a review by the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate basically agreed, saying the Section 45 defence can be open to

[Detective Inspector Cheryl Quinn]

abuse by unscrupulous individuals and criminal gangs who exploit the existence of the defence to assist them in recruiting and coercing

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

others to commit offences on their behalf.

[David Collins]

This warning came after Home Office referrals increased by 60% between 2020 and 2022, a rise largely driven by County Line's activity. In fact, the protection of the Modern Slavery act was so widely used by drug runners, it became known as the County Line's defence.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

It was a tactic that was used, it was initially effective. We didn't always deal with these things in the best way possible. We might stop a case that we certainly wouldn't stop now or the decision wouldn't be back in time. So the trial would have to be adjourned. We'd have to consider whether to keep Someone in custody. So that was quite an effective tactic for them at that point.

[David Collins]

Rachel argues, however, that after 2023 the guidance was reviewed and improvements made.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

We got our house in order. All our guidance is now in one place. All our lawyers have regular training. So we are doing in my view quite well. So it's not a get out of jail free card anymore.

[David Collins]

Not a get out of jail free card anymore. Rachel says they've got much better at testing the evidence of exploitation, allowing them to continue with prosecutions.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

So at the point we've decided to prosecute, we're confident that we've got material that will rebut what they say. So for example, someone might say, not necessarily in a child county lines, think more of cannabis growth radicals. They might say, I couldn't get out, I was locked in. Well, the police will have been through their phones. We've had one where someone had pictures themselves in a casino. You've been out. But they've told the sca.

[David Collins]

Oh I see, they're saying they were captive, they literally couldn't leave the premises.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

We've had another case where someone said that they've been forced to do this, but the police have requested their bank accounts. There's thousands of pounds going into their account. Well, you're far less to be a victim of being compelled if you're being paid. So we then present our case with all that evidence that rebuts that defense, which is why things like keys, phones, laptops, the investigation is so important because it, we have to disprove what they're saying, but that's not a hurdle that we can't get over.

[David Collins]

So you don't think the NRM mechanism, it doesn't make it an insurmountable.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

Absolutely.

[David Collins]

Thing in court?

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

No, no. You're still able to prosecute and we do.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

I think it's really important that the real victims of trafficking and modern day slavery are protected, but it's also really important that people that aren't are prosecuted. And it's a really difficult balance to find. But that's why we have our policies, our processes, our guidance to make sure that we get that right.

[David Collins]

But whether things are now right is still up for debate. Rachel tells me a story which she thinks demonstrates the system working. A 17 year old in Humberside was accused of running a County Lines drug operation. He was given a positive conclusive grounds decision by the home Office, believed to be being exploited and not prosecuted. But after being let off, he was caught again running a different county line. And then he raised the same defence,

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

a new referral was made, I believe got a second conclusive grounds decision. One of the lawyers in the team followed our process, did their review and said, no, I'm still going to prosecute this person. The facts of that case suggested that basically he had been a victim of slavery at some point, but now he had agency over his own decision making, so he was choosing to continue to be involved in the enterprise. So he'd been offered support of support agencies following his previous conclusive grounds decision and he decided not to step away and to accept that help. He'd stayed within it and obviously worked his way a little bit up the hierarchy. So we were able to say in our decision making, no, you were a victim of trafficking, but now you're no longer, there's no longer a nexus to your offending.

[David Collins]

When the prosecution continued, Rachel says the 17 year old pled guilty. She sees this as getting the balance right, protecting children who could have been exploited while prosecuting when necessary. But what's incredible about this is that I've heard almost exactly the same story from Sergeant Mike Brocken, but he gives it as an example of system failure.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

Maybe it's because I've been doing the job for 20 years and this was never a thing when I first started and a child committed an offence, you just go, well, you've committed the offence. It's very black and white. You get in charge of going to court and then it's up to the courts to decide. And don't get me wrong, the level of safeguarding that is now in place is the right place. I just, I personally feel like it's being abused.

[David Collins]

The story Mike tells is that a 14 year old boy was stabbed in York, the victim of warring drug lines. So Mike's team quickly tracked down the line holders and arrested an adult and a teenager.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

Both of those were charged. The adult was rendered to prison and is still pending trial. The child was released by the courts

[David Collins]

believed to have been exploited. The child was bailed and given support to get him away from the gang. Only a month or so later, he

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

too was rearrested, identified as a line holder for a county line running and he was operating on his own.

[David Collins]

That case is still making its way through the courts. But the teenager was bailed for a second time with another positive conclusive grounds decision. For Mike, this is not getting the balance right, but giving dealers the opportunity to reoffend.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

He has had so much involvement at that point of being in court for the first one with all his support services. But despite all of that wraparound care that was put in place for him. He has then continued to go back to his old ways. He is now claiming that he's been exploited by somebody else who he doesn't know. He doesn't know their name, but he knows kind of roughly what they look like. And that's all he has to say. Maybe I'm naive, but to me he does not present or sound like someone who has been exploited. He's using it as a loophole.

[David Collins]

We can't say that someone who holds and operates a county line can't still feel pressure from figures higher up the chain can't be exploited. All drug organisations are a hierarchy. Anyone working in them can be subject to violence and threats. But at the very least, the justice system is struggling to deal with these cases quickly. I've sat in court and watched one case for several defendants accused of running a county line be delayed for 14 months simply because of a holdup in distributing paperwork from a positive conclusive grounds decision.

[District Crown Prosecutor Rachel Baldwin]

I think the, the thing is, the legislation is written to protect victims. It's written for all the right intents and purposes. You can't dictate everything that you do by. Could someone approach, get round this. People are clever. No matter what technology comes in, there's a way around it. No matter what barriers you try and put in, people find another way. So I don't think you can blame the legislation and if it was written a different way, we wouldn't have this. We might have a different problem, but I think we'd have some problem. And, and I think it's, it's about us sticking to our safeguards and applying them that will keep this under control.

[David Collins]

But as Mike points out, the very existence of the Modern Slavery act and the exploitation defence it offers means criminals can tell children they have a unique opportunity to climb the chain, run their businesses and face no consequences. Whether this is true or just fake advertising, York shows us this law might in fact be luring more children than ever into more senior positions running county lines. I've spent three episodes talking to you about the kids involved in County Lines. But it's their experiences that can give us a real insight into what exploitation and coercion actually look like. Tomorrow I'm going to be handing over to my colleague, Times crime editor David Wood.

[Sergeant Mike Brocken]

Can you remember the first time somebody approached you to maybe try to entice

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you to do something?

[David Collins]

He met one of the children caught up in county lines. I come out of the shop and he says, yo. He came to me. He's talking to me about drugs and stuff and telling me if I go to certain places I can get a couple bills like £300 of £400. That's next time on THE Story. I'm Sunday Times Northern editor David Collins. This episode was produced by Kate Lamble. The executive producer was Dan Box, sound design was by Dave Creasy and theme composition was by MAU Laceto. If you have any questions or comments, drop us a line to thestoryatthetimes.com or you can leave us a comment on Spotify. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.

[Detective Sergeant Amy Foster]

Sa. Foreign.

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