06/11/2017 Inside Out West

Is the there was a knock at the door

on the door opened and there are

eight people piling in the house

holding meat cleavers.

And the conman ripping off bereaved

families.

He seemed very convincing.

Coming away from it you wonder how

you were taken in.

It's a young

bird.

And the 15-year-old determined

to turn the green movement black.

Hello and welcome to Inside Out

West.

What would you do if a drug gang

moved into your house and started

dealing from there? It's happening

and it's called cooker ring.

Just an ordinary suburban estate in

Salisbury. It's where Max made his

home just over a year ago.

One

person came round and said I will

write to sit here for a couple of

hours? I said no problem. There was

a knock at the door and it was his

mates. Eight people piled in the

house holding meat cleavers.

He had

been cuckooed, his flat taken over

by drug dealers.

You don't feel safe

in your own home. It's your house

but you feel like you're the person

visiting.

It's becoming a hugely

successful business strategy for

drug dealers. All our local police

forces have seen a big increase in

these home invasions, so how can it

be stopped? Urban drug gangs from

cities like London and Birmingham

have set their sights on our rural

and coastal towns where there is

little or no competition from local

dealers. They sent their own people

out to establish new markets in

those more rural areas. Fake coerce

vulnerable people to work for them,

even going so far as to take over

their houses.

They pick on people

who have vulnerabilities. They may

be addicts, young people, weak

personalities. They know they can

get in there through barging in

using threats of violence or

violence itself.

Once inside it's to

business. Users have a single phone

number to call. This connects them

with the gang. Their order is passed

on to the cuckooed property from

where runners deliver their drugs

and collect payment. This is what's

known as the county line and it

opens up a whole new markets gangs.

For users it makes buying drugs as

simple as ordering takeaway. Each

phone number is extremely valuable

to the gangs. They can rake in

between £2000 and £3000 per day. Max

is 46. He's a former addict. Earlier

this year he was cuckooed when his

flatmate bought drugs through a

local county line.

This is how it

all came about and it's what they do

with everybody else. They come round

your house. They were sat here with

meat cleavers and blades. I'm sat

there with a broken arm, not able to

defend myself.

The gang bribed his

flatmate into working for them.

They

offered drugs and other things and

in some respects it's hard to say

no. At one point my flatmate said

I'll go out. He met one person, very

small amount of class a drugs, but

she's now landed herself in court.

It's not a good thing and a great

worry.

The dealers were in Max's

house 4-2 days before he tricked

them into leaving. He was lucky.

Gangs who cook who are often

violent. In the West this year, Paul

from Gloucester was cuckooed and

murdered. In Cheltenham, Cameron

Green and Mohammed were both stabbed

to death while dealing for county

Lowndes. The police are fighting

back. We joined Wiltshire Police for

a dawn raid, part of a far-reaching

operation. 25 homes were targeted,

seven of which had been cuckooed. 26

people were charged with drugs

offences, including Max's flatmate.

But are they catching the right

people?

It seems to me that they

spend all this money on an

operation, they jump on this person

and that person, and all they end up

with is arresting a few addicts who

are desperate enough to buy

something. They go to prison because

they've supplied undercover police.

They are not the people they need to

be arresting.

The law is very clear

on why people involved in dealing

will be charged. James Ward

prosecuted 59 people following a

recent police operation.

Supplying

drugs, whoever supplies them, is a

criminal offence. Whether it's the

small, vulnerable addict who does it

for the next wrap, or Mr big who's

bringing in £100,000 worth of

cocaine. It is still a criminal

offence. The law applies as much to

the addict as it does to Mr big.

You

are on camera.

In three police

operations in the region this year,

around 130 people have been

prosecuted for drug-related

offences. Some were just teenagers.

The minute they stop one lot,

there's another ten. It's a

pointless exercise in a lot of ways.

The law is there to protect the

public by clearing drugs and dealing

from the streets. How important is

it that we catch drug dealers?

It's

the catalyst to everything. If you

don't want burglaries, thefts,

robberies, murders, if you don't

want crying caused by drugs, you

have to take away the people

supplying it. You have to take away

the people that possess it and dish

it out. You have to take away the

people that bring it in and give it

out. Until you get rid of the cause,

you will still have the crime. If

you sit in the Crown Court in

England and is, every day you will

hear burglary, theft, robbery,

whatever else, murder, all because

of drugs.

The police will soon

gained a greater advantage over the

drug gangs. A new law comes into

force at the end of this year that

will give courts the power to shut

down telephone number is known to be

used for drug dealing. How effective

will closing down phone lines be

here?

If you can close down I is it

will have an impact because the line

can't be used. There is or is the

argument of another phone. They

might, but if the police know who

they are, the police can take steps

to deal by disruptive tactics to

stop those people setting up new

lines.

Will it be enough? Vulnerable

people are being exploited and

cuckooed by urban gangs right now.

Paul was the drug strategy manage

even -- manager for Avon and

Somerset police. How big a problem

is this that our communities?

It is

a major problem for this region and

the whole of the country. It's a

tactic that's been going on for the

last four or five years and it's a

very, very difficult tactic to do

anything about. It requires an awful

lot of resources from the police,

particularly, but also other

agencies because of the use of

vulnerable people. Quite simply, in

this day and age, those resources

aren't always there.

Paul instigated

the radical tactic of

decriminalising possession. This

meant first-time offenders got help

rather than a criminal Court and

were kept out of the hands of

criminal networks. Kara's approaches

more extreme, she is campaigning for

legalisation.

Drug laws are not

enforceable. We've tried to stop

people using, it's not working. We

need to educate people and be

realistic that people will use

drugs. I blame our politicians who

know this is the case but have their

heads in the sand. They won't look

at the problem or even review the

law. In the meantime 50 people a

week are dying from drug overdoses.

My story is one of 50 people a week

in this country alone.

Her partner

Jake died of a heroin overdose three

years ago. She doesn't want to be

easily identified in order to

protect their son, who is now five.

I feel really, really angry with the

government for refusing to even look

at the evidence for how we can treat

drugs as a health issue and not a

criminal issue and how we can take

the market away from criminals and

make it safer for people.

Max has

been clean for seven years. Yet he

was still a victim.

I'm too old for

it. If I knew what I knew now about

drugs and everything, I would have

run the other way at 100 mph. It was

all fun and games when it started,

but not now. It gets to a point

where it becomes life-threatening, a

lot of my friends have lost limbs or

they've died. The last three years

I've probably lost 15 of my closest

friends. All through one reason or

another, they've overdosed or been

attacked. It's a bit of a horror

show. But you can get out of it.

Max had a narrow escape, but what do

you think of his story? Ever had

anything similar? Let me know. You

can e-mail me.

Coming up. A walk on the wild side

for city kids.

The kids are so

infuse you stick. They are a bit

nervous, perhaps, and a bit

cautious.

When someone dies in suspicious

circumstances, getting answers can

be tough. Many of us would pay to

get help. But what if you were "And

in your hour of need?

The Foreign Office in London and

protest by families asking for help

over the death of their abroad.

Among them, Simon, who for months

masqueraded as an expert

investigator, calling himself Simon

De Grasse. But he is now in prison

for a £100,000: committed against

some of the most vulnerable people

you could imagine.

He was appearing

at Demos, he looked like he was

fighting for us.

He seemed very

convincing. Coming away from it you

wonder how you were taken in.

In

terms of the personal impact on the

family, it's the worst kind.

I've come to Sutton in Ashfield in

Nottinghamshire. Ray Martin and his

wife Pat were devastated when their

daughter Claire died in Italy five

years ago from stab rooms to the

throat.

We've never believed from

day one that our daughter took her

own life.

They believe Claire was

murdered, but the Italian

authorities ruled it was suicide.

Within months of her death, Simon

DeLoach had contacted them to say he

could help.

He said with his team

getting into Italy and asking

questions, he could get to the

truth. Mentioning that he had

contacts with Interpol, different

contacts abroad. He seemed to have

somebody everywhere. That's my

father's medals, he was in the

Coldstream Guards.

Ray is from a

proud military family and Dunloe

also claimed to be ex-armed

services.

I believed he fought for

our country and was injured.

He

invited them down to see him, he was

very friendly, he wasn't pushy, he

began to say what he could give them

and began to dangle the carrot of

what he could find out and what his

team could do and then started to

introduce it costing £60,000,

whatever figure it was he said his

services would cost.

In the end the

Martins had a lucky escape. They

didn't have the cash to pay the

fees.

If I had had the money, or we

could have remortgaged the house, I

could have lost quite a bit. To pull

a con on somebody that has lost

somebody, to give them fall so that

you're helping them when there is no

help at the end of the line, how low

can you go?

Dunloe said he had spent

15 years with the RAF, that he'd

been a pilot and had risen to Group

Captain. We checked with the

Ministry of Defence and it says he

doesn't have elite military

credentials at all. And his company

was simply a website he ran from his

home in Gloucester. But it was slick

enough to persuade some people to

hand over their money.

We knew he

would give a free assessment of the

case to see if he could help and we

felt it was worth a try. By then we

were three years after Andrew died.

Julie's son Andrew was 31 when he

died in September 20 ten. He was

found in a country lane near to

where he was living in France with

injuries on his body. French police

initially said he died from natural

causes. Months later they ruled it

was suicide.

The French said it

wasn't suspicious so there was

nothing to be done. We started to

campaign and to knock on any door

for help. They have spoken to their

managers and advised them not to

come out and receive the letter

because they are not allowed.

What a

load of rubbish.

The man they knew

Simon De Grasse accompanied them on

many of their protests. This one was

outside the French Embassy in

London. They gave him £18,000

thinking they were paying for his

influence the geisha and services

through his accountant, Paul Delow,

not knowing that was his real middle

name and surname. It wasn't the only

fictitious character he dreams up

along the way.

He told us he had a contact in

France who was almost his

counterpart, called Louis, based in

Paris who would help him with the

language and the law. We were drawn

in.

Julie now lives near Penrith in

Cumbria. For her money all she got

was an interim report full of

fabricated claims about her son's

death. Beginning to suspect all

wasn't as it seemed to be, Julie and

her husband Les insisted they

accompanied Delow on his next trip

to France.

He said it would be

dangerous. And he said if there was

a problem, we may have to escape

through Germany. We were still

determined to go and we did. Very

quickly unravelled. Louis was meant

to meet us in Paris and he didn't

turn up. He was shouting down the

phone at Louis, swearing at Louis.

Les and I looked at each other and

we both knew that we had been

conned.

The shepherds went to Durham

Police for help.

He didn't have

operatives across the country, he

didn't have the old boys network he

claimed, he was going under a

different name and he had a previous

conviction for fraud and had been to

prison.

More than a decade ago Delow

posed as an insurance broker in

Lincolnshire, but he spent most of

the tens of thousands of pounds he'd

taken for policies on expensive

cars. Simon Delow had set up a

company reporting to be at an

international company specialising

in insurers cover for the

construction industry.

On looking

into that we quickly found the whole

thing was a sham. His website

purported blue-chip company,

expensive offices, Singapore, New

York. It was a two bedroom flat

above a hairdressers in Boston.

As

Durham Police built up their case

against Delow for his latest fraud

can he went on the run. He'd left

Gloucester but they traced him to

Jersey. He was arrested and then

held on remand in Durham. In August

he pleaded guilty to ten fraud

charges relating to the shepherds,

the Martins and a third family. Ten

days ago Simon Delow had to face 's

victims again at Durham Crown Court

as he was given a ten year sentence

for a con the judge said could be

summed up in one word. Ten years,

what did you make of that? -- one

word, cruel.

At least he's not out

there trying to dupe anybody else.

Ten years and another.

The families

now have justice against Simon

Delow, but they say they will

continue to fight for justice for

their loved ones who died abroad.

She's a teenage girl on a mission.

She wants more people like her to

get into nature. But it's not gone

down well with everyone.

This is Mya-Rose, she is 15 and

loves everything to do with nature.

Just an amazing place to be.

But her

biggest passion is birds.

I've been

to 32 countries in the world, I've

been to seven continents, I've seen

over 4000 birds.

On her popular 2-1

blog, she campaigns to get other

black and minority ethnic kids into

wildlife too, but that exposed her

to the darker side of social media.

Since Brexit and Trump, there's been

a lot of racism. This isn't pleasant

to deal with, itch and be allowed to

happen. -- it shouldn't be allowed

to happen.

Mya-Rose likes to meet

people face-to-face and in courage

them to get into conservation.

Do

you come out to green spaces much?

Not really.

Do you not enjoy being

out in nature?

I do, but sometimes I

don't have the time. I usually stay

home.

Home is eastern in Bristol.

Mya-Rose has persuaded her to come

on a weekend camping trip with 16

other inner-city kids.

I'm excited

for bird-watching because I've never

done it. I don't know any apart from

pigeons and seagulls.

At a campsite

in Somerset, Mya-Rose is getting

ready for her guests. The cab was

her idea, but it wouldn't happen

without the help of her parents.

It's a three-man job. Ma'am!

The

camp is done on a shoestring budget.

This tent is borrowed and has seen

better days. They are still

struggling to put it up when

everyone arrives.

We are on a

campsite near Glastonbury. I feel

like it's going very well.

While the

veggie sausages sizzle, the boys

take part in an open-air Friday

prayer. After dinner, the group wait

for nightfall and the first

activity. Moth catching.

It's called

an elephant hawk moth. If I take one

out.

Please don't, are you mad?

Obviously likes you. It's the same

colour.

The moths weren't the only

ones buzzing all night.

It was a bit

hectic because they were playing

around.

But at least they were up

for the dawn chorus.

I had to wake

up to pray at around four. I don't

know what the birds were. They were

beautiful.

After breakfast, which

took a while, the group returned to

see what else turned up in the moth

traps.

After you had gone,... A

bright line and a brown eye. The

kids are so enthusiastic. A bit

nervous at first, perhaps, and a bit

cautious. That's a swallowtail moth

flying away. They are thinking maybe

they don't want to be interested,

but some of the moths are so

beautiful, how can you not being

gauged? It's really good to show

young people, particularly when its

ethnic minorities. In my field, most

people are a bit like me or maybe

younger, white, middle-class males.

We want to extend that and outreach

into the wider community. Have cut

hands like that.

Mya-Rose's parents are keen

bird-watchers. In 2010 the family,

including a seven-year-old Mya-Rose,

featured in a BBC Four documentary

about twitchers, a name given to

obsessive bird-watchers. They are

heading off from their home in

Somerset to see as many rare birds

as they can wear ever in the UK they

may be. Mya-Rose sometimes seemed

reluctant.

How long are we going to

be out?

As long as it takes.

But I'm

hungry!

But she stuck with the hobby

and at 11 she became the youngest

twitcher in the UK to see 3000

birds. A total is now over 4000, but

earlier this year she was in the

news for very different reasons.

Over the last couple of years,

especially since Brexit and Trump

and staff, there's been lots of

Islam phobia and racism. I'm trying

to get a lot of diversity in nature

and it opens me up to people. I've

had things telling me all South

Asians should be culled.

Though not

addressed directly to her, these

tweets appeared on her timeline,

making her feel threatened.

After a

while this had really built up on

Twitter, I sent out a tweet saying

this had happened to me today. Isn't

that terrible? This shouldn't be

allowed. Since I sent that out, I've

been very supported by a lot of

people on the Internet who say this

is horrible. If anyone dares to eat

something at me now, I don't deal

with it because other people say you

can't say that wicked. They stand up

for me and that's really lovely.

Back at the camp, she's helping her

dad ring birds.

We are checking the

age and this one is quite recently

come out of the nest.

This is a way

of identifying individuals to

monitor them. As with the moths,

Hamed is keen to learn all about it.

It's a young bird.

Mya-Rose thinks

there are many reasons why people

from black and minority ethnic

backgrounds don't currently in gauge

with wildlife.

For BAME people, in

the UK they say they have urban

routes, the city is where I belong

and they have a tendency to forget

their grandparents probably drew up

in auroral village in the middle of

the countryside.

But she believes

they will benefit personally from

getting outdoors.

They are the least

likely to go out into the nature,

but the most likely to have mental

illness. It's important that they

are able to fight that.

I've got a water boatman. A pond

skater. Worms.

Do you reckon after this you can see

yourself instead of waking up really

late and watching net flicks, going

into the park or something and

hanging around the lake, just being

outdoors more or not?

Yeah, I could

see myself doing that. It's more fun

and nice to get out and see

everything.

Do you think you would

do nature stuff with your friends?

After this I would.

To round off the

end of a long day of the group go to

the top of the Mendips to try to see

a nightjar, an elusive bird with a

strange call.

It's called sure ring,

quite a weird noise.

The group and

our camera only managed a very

fleeting glimpse of the bird. What

is unmistakable is the sight of

Hamed and her new friends having fun

outdoors.

That's it for this series. We're

back in January. But don't be a

stranger. I'd love to hear your

stories. You can contact us on

Facebook and Twitter, or just drop

me an e-mail. Until next time, good

night.