Drug addict who featured in Sky News investigation given second chance by rehabilitation charity
Last week, Sky News revealed that councils are spending half of what they did on addiction treatment services 10 years ago, and the number of drug-related deaths has doubled.
We told the story of Craig Murphy, an addict who had been trying to get into rehab for a decade. After our reporting, a rehabilitation charity offered Craig a place in Oxford. We joined him as he moved into his first safe accommodation in years.
Craig Murphy’s mouth is wide open. Inside is a swab scraping along his cheek. Craig, a crack and alcohol addict, is being tested ahead of admission to rehab.
The swab test will show up any opiates, amphetamine, benzo, cocaine, ketamine and other commonly abused drugs. There is also a urine test for alcohol.
Craig looks a little nervous. Or perhaps it’s the exhausting journey he has to make to get him to the ADAPT Charity in Oxford from his home in Burnley. Or maybe it is neither and this is what a man with a 20-year addiction looks like.
The urine test comes back negative. It confirms what Craig says: that he has been sober for nearly three weeks now.
But the drugs test returns positive. Craig has cannabis in his system.
“You had cannabis yesterday?” I ask. “But you knew that was going to come up in the test?”
Craig looks apologetic. “I made a stupid mistake by smoking some,” he says.
“It’s hard to say no. It was there and I took it. But I’m here now and I know I’m not going to be touching anything.”
He had better not if he wants to keep his place on rehab.
There’s a growing waiting list and the charity has a zero tolerance policy towards drugs and alcohol. From now on, Craig will be randomly tested once a week.
Craig has been searching for a place on a residential rehab for nearly 10 years. Council funding to addiction recovery services has suffered drastic cuts at the same time demand for places and deaths from addiction are going up.
He was offered a six-month placement with ADAPT in Oxford after his struggle was reported on Sky News last Friday.
‘I was dead for a couple of minutes’
Craig will be sharing a house with three other recovering addicts. He has already formed a bond with one of them, Dave New.
He was exposed to heroin as a 16-year-old in care. His mother, a single parent, died when he just 10-years-old. He describes an early childhood moving from home to home in run down coastal towns across southeast England.
The heroin was supplied by a dealer who lived in the same hostel. It was the start of a traumatic battling addiction with almost every drug.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘I was dead for a couple of minutes’
“Two weeks before I came up here, I overdosed and ‘died’,” Dave says.
“I ended up injecting heroin mixed with fentanyl and I overdosed. I was dead for a couple of minutes. When I woke up and looked in the mirror my face was blue. My lips were purple.
“I’ve been here 20 days today. I feel great and it’s all because we’re in safe housing, dry housing, where we’re drug tested regularly.”
Dave is 43 years old now. And this is the first time he has been clean for this long.
Drug free accommodation crucial for recovery
And it is why the charity places so much emphasis on providing safe, drug-free accommodation. It is crucial for any chance of recovery, the charity’s CEO Eddie Cobb tells me.
“Over 80% of our clients have experienced homelessness, being put in sheltered accommodation, where there are other addicts using,” she says. “So there’s just no chance, you know, when you’re around when you want to get clean, and you’re surrounded by other people that are using, it’s impossible for them to get clean.”
Craig is confident that he can stay sober this time. He has just been given the keys to his new home.
As we sit on the bed in room number 4, he takes out his phone and shows me photographs of the other hostels where he has lived.
The pictures show seeping sewage, mouldy bathrooms and boarded up toilets. Depressing pictures of neglect and disrepair. Just like the addiction recovery system so many addicts describe.
But Craig’s challenge was not the dilapidated buildings – it was the addicts still taking drugs and alcohol that made his life hell.
“It just feels like I’ve been given something I’ve never been given before,” he says. “And I’m going to take it. And I’m going to use it.”
Craig knows he’s been given a chance thousands of addicts never get. He also knows, it could be his last.
UK
Use of drones to fly weapons into prisons has become a ‘threat to national security’, watchdog warns
The use of drones to fly drugs and weapons into UK prisons needs to be tackled “urgently” because it has become a threat to “national security”, the chief inspector of prisons has said.
Charlie Taylor added that police and the prison service had in effect “ceded the airspace” around HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin to organised crime gangs who are using the gadgets to deliver contraband to inmates.
The two high security prisons hold some of the most dangerous men in the country, including terrorists and organised crime bosses.
Mr Taylor’s warning comes after inspections of HMP Manchester, based in the city centre, and HMP Long Lartin, in Evesham, Worcestershire, found both prisons had “thriving illicit economies” of drugs, mobile phones and weapons.
Inspectors also found that basic security measures such as protective netting and CCTV had fallen into disrepair.
Some inmates at HMP Manchester, a category B jail which holds a small number of category A prisoners, had burned holes in windows so that they could receive regular deliveries by drone, the HM Inspectorate of Prisons watchdog said as it published the findings of the inspections.
It added that many of the drones had “increasingly large payloads” which “had the potential to lead to serious disruption and even escape”.
Mr Taylor said: “It is highly alarming that the police and prison service have, in effect ceded the airspace above two high-security prisons to organised crime gangs which are able to deliver contraband to jails holding extremely dangerous prisoners including some who have been designated as high-risk category A.
“The safety of staff, prisoners and ultimately that of the public, is seriously compromised by the failure to tackle what has become a threat to national security.
“The prison service, the police and other security services must urgently confront organised gang activity and reduce the supply of drugs and other illicit items which so clearly undermine every aspect of prison life.”
The latest warning comes months after an inmate at high-security HMP Garth in Lancashire told inspectors the prison was like an “airport” because there were so many drones flying in drugs.
Inspectors found prisoners had been using the elements from their kettles to burn holes in their “inadequately protected” Perspex windows to allow the “entry of drones laden with contraband”.
Prisoners burned holes in their windows at HMP Garth. Pic: HM Inspectorate of Prisons
The inspections at HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin, which took place across September and October 2024, also revealed other serious concerns around safety and security at both sites.
Mr Taylor felt the situation was so bad at HMP Manchester that he issued an urgent notification for improvement to the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
At Manchester, 39% of prisoners tested positive in mandatory drug tests, while at Long Lartin, 50% of those who responded to the watchdog’s survey said it was easy to get drugs and alcohol.
Violence and self-harm at both prisons was also found to have increased, which the watchdog said was partly driven by drugs and the accompanying debt prisoners found themselves in.
Meanwhile there had been six “self-inflicted deaths” at Manchester since the watchdog’s last inspection in 2021, with a seventh taking place after the most recent visit.
It is now one of the most violent prisons in the country, with a high number of serious assaults against prisoners and staff.
Read more:
Prisoners left needing hospital after taking ‘drone-delivered’ drugs
Under-strain prison system to shut thousands of cells
New law on early release of short-term prisoners is passed
Many officers “lacked confidence, were demoralised, and were struggling to manage experienced prisoners who were serving long sentences for serious crimes”, the watchdog said.
Manchester was also found to have a chronic rodent infestation, while there was widespread dirt, damp and litter at both sites.
Prisoners at Manchester were also found to have used torn-up foam from mattresses and pillows to keep out the cold.
Inspectors found 38% of prisoners there were locked up during the working day and poor attendance at education and work was further fuelling the boredom, drug-taking, self-harm and violence.
At Long Lartin, which houses both category A and B prisoners, a continued lack of in-cell toilets for many prisoners led them to use buckets and throw bags of excrement out of the windows, many of which were not cleared up, the watchdog said.
The Ministry of Justice said in a statement: “This government inherited prisons in crisis – overcrowded, with drugs and violence rife.
“We are gripping the situation by investing in prison maintenance and security, working with the police and others to tackle serious organised crime, and building more prison places to lock up dangerous criminals.”
Reform UK has grown in support to within one percentage point of Labour according to a new poll for Sky News by YouGov which suggests Britain has entered a new era of three-way party politics.
Sir Keir Starmer looks set to spend the parliament locked in a fight with two right-wing parties after Labour support dropped sharply in the first YouGov poll since the general election.
The poll shows the Tories have now been pushed into third place – two months after Kemi Badenoch was elected leader.
The data collected over the weekend puts Labour on 26%, Reform UK on 25%, Conservatives on 22%, Liberal Democrats on 14% and Greens on 8%.
This is a huge switch from the general election, when Labour was on 35%, Conservatives on 24%, Reform UK on 15%, Lib Dem on 13% and Greens on 7%.
Politics latest: Chancellor will remain until next election, Downing Street says
This is the first of YouGov’s weekly voting intention polls for Sky News, shared with The Times.
It reflects a drop in satisfaction with the government, a rise in support for Reform UK, and shows how the Labour vote has split in all directions since the election.
Labour has retained 54% of their vote at the general election – 7% have gone to the Lib Dems, 6% to the Green Party, 5% to Reform UK, 4% to the Tories – while 23% of those polled did not say, did not know or would not vote.
Reform UK’s vote has grown since the general election at the expense of all other parties, with 16% of voters who backed the Tories at the ballot last year now saying they’d support Reform.
Read more:
Can Labour turn things around?
Musk having a negative impact on British politics, poll finds
The judgement on Sir Keir’s first six months in office is damning, however.
Some 10% say the government has been successful while 60% say unsuccessful.
Older voters have turned away from Labour. Just 14% of over 65s would now vote Labour, down from 22% around the time of the election.
However, there are signs the Tory party remains a toxic brand. Reform UK are the least unpopular party, with a net favourability rating of -32, Labour a touch worse on -34 and the Tories down on -45.
YouGov interviewed 2,279 voters in Great Britain on Sunday 12 January and Monday 13 January.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports9 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway