How drug dealer turned his life around

Rehab offers new hope for long-term addicts.

This week 13 people involved in drugs crimes were arrested by police in Dereham during three early morning raids.

Reporter Elaine Maslin spoke to a prisoner serving his 10th sentence for drug-related crimes about his 30-year habit, its effect on others and coming clean.

This week four months of police work resulted in the arrest of 13 people from Dereham.

Twelve of those have been charged with either conspiracy to supply, theft or handling stolen goods and remanded in custody.

But getting suspected dealers and addicts, often one and the same, off the streets and into jail is just the start.

What follows is the far-reaching effect this type of crime has on a community, families and individuals and the work done to try and get them off heroin, right from when they first enter police custody.

Glyn Davis, 45, has known nothing else for 30 years.

He has been an addict for most of that time, since he was 15 and living in children's homes, and has been in and out of prison most of his adult life.

His latest offence, dealing in Cromer, saw him given a four-year sentence, his 10th, of which he has six months left to serve at HMP Wayland at Griston, near Watton.

It was only here that he got his break. He was the first to graduate from a new drugs programme introduced at the prison in June and is now a peer mentor for others going through it.

RAPT (Rehabilitation of addicted prisoners) is an intensive residential programme only available at nine prisons in the UK. There are 36 on the RAPT unit at Wayland.

It runs alongside the control of drug supply at the prison, medication, other courses, constant checking for drugs being smuggled in to prison through drugs dogs, random drugs tests and trading of medication.

It's a constant battle to keep on top of tricks like drugs being dissolved into children's paints then painted on to greetings cards.

RAPT, however, doesn't just help treat the addiction, but also seeks to address the offenders' wider problems in life - how to interact with people, to get a job and, most importantly, open up and face up to what they have done and why.

That was the hardest part, said Glyn.

“At first I wasn't interested. Other attempts at rehabilitation hadn't worked, they have just been courses, but I had nothing better to do,” he said.

“I have spent many years thinking this is what I am, a junkie. I had never thought about what I have done to other people and the knock-on effects in the community and what I do to other people. All I thought about was the spoon and one ml.

“It has been the hardest thing I have done in prison. I don't like what I have done at all and facing up to it was hard.

“But now being a peer supporter makes me feel I'm useful to someone. Now I have got hope and I have never had that before.”

Back in 2008 he had slipped back into heroin addiction after five years of being clean, although heavily reliant on alcohol.

Having moved to Cromer, where his brother lived, in 2003 he then lost his job, flat and girlfriend and fell back into what he knew: addiction and dealing.

He was caught with £100 of heroin and jailed.

In his mind, dealing was kinder than buying the addict who burgled - as a dealer he didn't have to burgle people. Now he sees that this still meant someone else was doing it.

For Valerie Fairhurst, the RAPT programme manager, the change in Glyn has been remarkable.

Today he comes across as a gentle if not meek man, sorry for the life he has led and, for the first time in his life, gaining self esteem and faith that he does not have to slump back into the life of a junkie.

When he is released he will continue to receive support through a secondary programme.

It does not work for all prisoners, she said. But when it does it pays off.

Of two men arrested in dawn raids yesterday, one has been released on bail pending further enquiries.

Shane Gray, 42, of Le-Neve Road, Marsham, has been charged with five counts of handling stolen goods.