Mum Gives Daughter Three ECSTASY Tablets As 13th Birthday Present

Faline · #1 ● 03-12-2013, 05:16 PM

A mum gave her daughter three ecstasy tablets as a 13th birthday present, a mayor revealed today.

“I just despair,” said Ray Mallon, nicknamed RoboCop for his zero tolerance on crime when he led Cleveland Police CID in the 1990s.

Mr Mallon, 57, the first elected mayor of Middlesbrough, was speaking about problem families in the northern town, which has 360 children in care.

The ex-detective revealed one household was costing the public purse £600,000 a year to deal with.

And he said in another family, a mother gave her daughter a present of three ecstasy tablets when she became a teenager.

He said: “Many of these children are in care due to neglect because of poor parenting.

"There was one where a mother gave a 13 year-old child ecstasy tablets - you know, hard drugs - for her birthday.

“One family costs £600,000 a year due to numerous interventions by the council and our partner agencies."

The government has set up its Troubled Families programme to help 120,000 households in England turn their lives around by 2015.

Mr Mallon, who has been elected Middlesbrough mayor three times since 2002, said he planned to step down that year.