Liverpool's kids can get a gun 'in just 15 minutes', ex-drug dealer tells LBC

26 August 2022, 08:05

By Rachael Venables

@rachaelvenables

A former drug dealer has said that children in Liverpool "can get a gun in 15 minutes".

As the city reels from the fatal shootings of three people in under a week - the youngest being nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, LBC's learned just how easily some gang members can get a gun.

Paul Walmsley is now an Intervention Consultant who fights to get young people away from crime.

"I once spoke to a 14-year-old who told me he can get a gun in 15 minutes," he said.

A youngster told him that as a "cry for help" as he was about to be trafficked into county lines to move drugs across the country.

Casual drug use is 'cloaked in violence' says former dealer Paul Walmsley

Read more: Devastated family of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, 9, plead for people to 'speak up' to find killer in heartbreaking tribute

Paul moved to protect him, but says these deadly weapons are "stored in houses across the city, they might be in bushes, on canals, they might be in parks right now where children are playing - they are just about".

"All the disputes across the country are settled with knives or guns," he said.

Yesterday, LBC heard from a former Liverpool arms dealer who admitted tricking young people and their families to mind the guns for him, by telling them the safes were full of cannabis instead.

Ex drug-dealer Paul Walmsley tells LBC about a young lad nicknamed 'The Hotel'

Paul firmly believes poverty and lack of opportunity is one of the biggest reasons children around the UK get trapped in gangs: "For me, jobs stop bullets."

He added: "They're going look at the money situation and think "wow this is Christmas, I’m going to be earning £500 a week".

"That to them is as a job prospect, and maybe it does sounds glamorous and lovely early doors - but let me tell you further down the line you've got the police knocking at your door, and your life's disrupted because you've got mental health issues and job issues, and friends who you think are your friends - but in the end they'll want to kill you.

"Because with that lifestyle only comes death and torment."