For the full story, click on: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=county

For the full story, click on: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/?s=county

Above, 9 reports in November 2024. Below the story going back for 5 years:

BBC Scotland and ‘County Lines’ drug gangs – now 5 years of silence to protect the Union

I have an alert for ‘County Lines’ and every day I see reports from BBC UK, BBC England and from BBC regions across the country – BBC Devon (today), BBC Cumbria (last week).

I never, ever, see anything from BBC Scotland despite regular reports in the ‘Scottish’ tabloids and on regional news media websites.

In October 2019, pushing 5 years ago, BBC Scotland’s Connor Gillies reported under the explicit headline ‘County lines’: Aberdeenshire, Perthshire and Highlands targeted by drugs gangs, this:

Rural communities in the Highlands, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire are being targeted by gangs using school children to sell class A drugs.

Dealers based mainly in London and Merseyside use youngsters to move heroin and crack cocaine from major cities to smaller locations.

Police Scotland say there are more than 20 active routes north of the border known as “county lines”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50090140

Children? That’ll be a story that will run and run? Later exposures of extreme violence, XL Bully dogs, people trafficking and sexual abuse in the homes of ‘cuckooed’ vulnerable locals; turned ‘County Lines’ gangs into headline stuff everywhere.

Police Scotland estimate around 50 to 60 locations including the Ayrshire village of Auchinleck where locals drove the Bradford-based gang out of town in November 2023 but BBC Scotland failed to mention the gang and portrayed it simply as a riot by unruly locals.

The National Crime Agency first identified ‘County Lines’ gangs in 2015, 9 years ago, and everywhere across the BBC other than in Scotland, this has become a major theme for reporting and for TV drama.

BBC Scotland did, once, in May 2021, have on their website, ‘Drugs seized in crackdown on county lines gangs’ and referring to Dingwall of all places, but did not identify the English cities where the gangs were based.

Then more than three years of silence.

Given the enormous, disturbing and newsworthy nature of this plague, BBC Scotland’s aversion to reporting on it can only be deliberate policy at editorial level and above.

Bias by omission of the most clear form.

Connor Gillies moved to Sky TV in 2022.