HEARTBREAKING REAL LIFE
Emma Dix, 47, from Norwich, just wanted to protect her son and family...
Charging around the garden, my son Joe always had a ball to his foot.
A huge fan of football, rugby and cricket – it often meant that my husband Phil, 46, and I were always replacing panes of glass in the garden greenhouse.
‘He’s a lovable rogue,’ Phil used to joke.
But he was a talented sportsman, even playing for Norwich City Development Squad in his early teens.
And growing up, Joe was really proud of his younger sister Bethany, now 16.
Joe was a confident and outgoing child and heading to secondary school, he continued excelling at his sports.
Playing sports most days a week, Joe also started thinking about his image – his huge passion for collecting pairs of Nike trainers had begun. We’d ferry Joe to his sports and Bethany to dance classes. A tight-knit family unit, life was normal.
Only when Joe turned 14, we noticed a few changes.
Going out on the weekends and spending more time on his phone, Phil and I understood that he was at the age where he’d want to spend more time with his mates than us.
Only, he’d often come home sporting new tracksuits or a new T-shirt.
‘Look at this,’ he’d grin, showing us his new clothes. ‘I swapped it.’
Joe had a huge growth spurt as he hit his early teens – him swapping clothes with his mates made sense.
We didn’t think that there was anything wrong, until Joe was asked to move schools in 2017, aged 14.
Unbeknownst to us, his behaviour had been challenging. Joe had been angry towards his teachers and peers and was skipping school.
We’d known Joe was a little cheeky and had thought he’d been testing the boundaries – like most teenage boys.
‘Is everything OK?’ we’d ask Joe, but he’d always brush our concerns off.
And after six months at his new school, Joe’s teachers wanted a meeting with us.
Talking to the school’s safeguarding officer, they had several concerns.
‘Is Joe involved in county lines?’ they asked.
‘What is that?’ Phil and I quizzed. We’d never heard of it.
The school didn’t really explain what county lines meant. But we found out one thing – Joe could potentially be dealing and moving drugs. It was horrifying to hear. We had no idea Joe could be leading a double life.
We were so disappointed.
However hard we tried, we couldn’t get through to him.
‘What’s going on Joe?’ we’d beg. ‘How can we help you?’
‘I’m not dealing drugs,’ Joe was always adamant.
The school would ask countless questions trying to get through to him, but it just made J
