Supply class A - Case discontinued on grounds of 'Modern Slavery'

R v AA - Willesden Youth Court

The defendant, a 14 year old, was charged with supplying class A drugs to an undercover police officer as part of a large scale operation in London. He was 13 years old at the time of the offence. We were successfully able to secure him bail when all other parts of the operation were remanded in custody. Considering the circumstances of his involvement with older gang members a referral was made to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) as we suspected he was the victim of ‘modern slavery’ and was being exploited to commit criminal acts. After months of liaising with the NRM and proving them with all the necessary material they found ‘conclusive grounds’ that our client had been exploited. Representations were then made to the Crown Prosecution who agreed that it was not in the public interest to prosecute and formally discontinued the case against our client.