Hundreds of extremely vulnerable children at risk of being recruited by criminal gangs are being thrown out of schools in county lines hotspots.
Figures obtained by BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 programme revealed there were more than 1,200 exclusions and suspensions of children assessed by social services to be grooming targets in England’s four largest drug-exporting regions between 2021 and 2023.
Exclusion is widely regarded by child protection experts as a trigger point for criminal exploitation as pupils removed from classrooms lose the structure of the school day and the oversight of teachers. Some are left unsupervised at home and others are sent to pupil referral units, where gangs often recruit.
The data – which came from 37 councils in London, West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Merseyside – showed rising numbers of children at risk of criminal exploitation are being pushed out of mainstream schools. At least 600 vulnerable children were removed from classrooms either temporarily or permanently in 2022-23, up from 512 in 2021-22, across the 31 areas that provided figures for both years.
The former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield said the figures were deeply alarming. “These are the children who’ve already been identified and assessed as being very, very vulnerable,” she said. “We absolutely should use the knowledge that those children are vulnerable to make sure they get that ring of protection they need and that means they need to stay in school.”
