Lights Out: County Lines

This was another collaboration with the inimitable Phoebe McIndoe, and another subject about which we cared deeply. Phoebe has been wanting to make something about County Lines for a long time and so we were so grateful to Alan Hall and Eleanor McDowall at Falling Tree for giving us the space to make something entirely intuitively. We didn't know before we started working what this would sound like. And we aren't asked for an exact prediction. Instead, we spoke to loads of different people about their experiences. We took our time. We experimented and tried different ideas. We let the shape emerge organically.

In its final shape, the documentary includes some amazing people. A woman who was cuckooed and held hostage by a county lines gang for 7 months, and treated appallingly by the authorities She writes a blog, anonymously, which she started while being cuckooed (though she couldn't publish it until much later). A man who was first groomed by gangs at the age of eight, and trafficked to a trap house at the age of 10. It's incomprehensible the extent to which he was failed as a young boy. He works now to help others who, years later, find themselves in similar circumstances to him. And a man who served time for running a line in the East of England. Drug dealing is all he's ever known. Lights Out: County Lines only tells a fraction of their stories, but gives a glimpse into a world that shouldn't exist.

Once again Alan Hall was a brilliant exec for us on this. And we were helped by the St Giles Trust SOS+ Project, (thanks especially to Junior Smart) Escapeline, Not In Our Community, SPACE, and many others. So many people are working so hard in this area.