‘Trapping’ Movie Tackles County Lines & War On Drugs at Houses Of Parliament

Multi-award winning filmmaker and social activist, Penny Woolcock joined forces with production company Fan Studios on ‘Trapping’ - delivering what’s acknowledged as a truthful and raw portrayal of county lines and war on drugs. Launching on streaming service The Drop, founded by British directors and pioneers, Femi Oyeniran and Nicky “Slimting” Walker, it is designed to be the voice for the underrepresented. Exploring and documenting British stories, whilst spotlighting talents through a range of accessible visual projects.

‘Trapping’ captures the experiences within economically deprived areas of London and Kent. The crucial and essential stories that has long affected many families and friends, and continue doing so. The movie delves deep into the less-explored world of ‘going county’ or OT (out of town), where children (as young as 6 years old) and teenagers are being groomed by county line gangs to carry and sell drugs, move far away from their homes, skip school, sleep in out-of-town “trap houses”/ drug dens, keep secrets from their loved ones, and become trapped in a hopeless situation. The movie sees Abra Cadabra, MOBO award-winning and North London’s esteemed rapper make his acting debut as the leading county line gang member. Drawing experiences as a Broadwater Farm native, the On Deck artist delivered a powerful and alluring performance. It also sees appearances from upcoming actors: Louis Ede (who plays leading character Daz), Aaliyah Gohir (who plays Maryam), C-Biz (who plays Bigger Man), Femi Oyeniran (who plays Wole), Nicky Walker, (who plays Slim Man), and Drill group OFB.

Enhancing awareness and taking further action, a panel discussion took place on Thursday 14th September at Houses Of Parliament. It provided a thought-provoking and stimulating conversation on county lines, drugs and gang violence. As attendees of the debate, we were introduced to  a range of experts and industry professionals. This included: Abra Cadabra, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (Labour Member of Parliament for Streatham), Femi Oyeniran (Actor and film director), L’myah Sherae (Policy expert, campaigner, and CEO of Enact Equality), Ben Lindsay (Author, activist and founder of Power The Fight) and Amani Simpson (Filmmaker, speaker and youth coach). The evening kicked off with a welcome speech by Bell Ribeiro-Addy - as she explained the purpose of the debate and schedule for the next 1hr 30 mins. Once complete, an introduction was made by each panelist which followed with their passion for the themes discussed.

Abra Cadabra openly shared, “I grew up in a poor area of North London and have seen the effect county lines has had on some of myfriends. When I read the script, I just felt that you don’t really see the realness of that type of stuff – and if you do see it, it’s probably just the glamourised parts of it – the money, the cars. As long as I could be involved in a way that showed everyone the realness of growing up in certain parts of London, I wanted to be involved. The film’s a good learning curve for kids.” L’Myah Sherae, CEO for Enact Equality went on to educate attendees, sharing statistics that summarise the reality attached to county lines: “The fact of the matter is, that 46.000 people across the UK are involved in county lines, and that’s probably a very small number in comparison to the amount of people realistically involved more broadly… The vast majority of children that get coerced into county lines are in poverty.”

Their determination to make a difference was immediately evident. Young people often fall victim to county lines and gang violence. Each member of the Trapping crew and panel discussion felt compelled to hold this significant conversation and do it the right way.

As questions were asked and answered - collectively, everyone acknowledged one of the biggest issues. Poverty. Youth clubs are closing all over the country, there’s a lack of safe spaces for young people and this strongly impacts the kids. Activist and Power The Flight founder, Ben Lindsay OBE stated, “There’s a poverty conversation which needs to be had. The average wage in this country is £32,000, but when you’re talking about below the poverty line, more than 60% of the country, are actually on £14,000. If you’ve got a family and your salary is £14,000 a year, you can understand why some kids are going want to help pay the bills and get food in. Until that is sorted and spoken about at a policy level, we will continue to see these things happening. The government need to invest in youth provisions. We’ve had austerity since 2011, we’ve had £1.4 billion taken from youth services up and down the country. We could talk all day long about what could or needs to happen, but if you’re taking away youth services, you’re taking away youth workers off the streets, this is going to be part of the problem. School exclusions are on the rise, and we’ve got pupil referral units being full…These are really key areas for being groomed into county lines.”

“Black children under 21 are 3x more likely to be arrested in relation to drug offences in relation to their white counterparts. They’re more likely to be seen as perpetrators and offenders than they are victims – even those under the age of 16. They’re often not treated from a safeguarding perspective, instead treated as offenders and perpetrators. To get around the stereotype of poverty, a lot of affluent children are targeted as well – a lot of white children from affluent backgrounds. So, while this is definitely a social justice issue particularly with regards to how black children are treated in the youth justice system, there’s also an element around white children being targeted, particularly because they’re less likely to be stopped and searched. Again, this just reinforces the problematic nature of the criminal justice system.” said L’myah Sherae.

To implement real changes, we need to work collaboratively and identify what we can do as a community to raise awareness and support young people. Femi Oyeniran and Amani Simpson genuinely exhibited this by demonstrating unity. Simpson revealed, “when we were making our short film, we crowdfunded a lot of our money from church – going around various different churches and the community coming together to put money into it. Obviously, that’s not a sustainable way to operate – but we do have community spaces where people are willing to support”, which Oyeniran then proudly stated “I’m all for collaboration. You can take the film into schools, I’ll make it available to you Amani and you can do whatever you need to do with it. If I can feed into that I would be happy to collaborate.”

Movies such as ‘Trapping’ followed by fundamental acts spark an imperative conversation. At times, key messages are lost by viewers but movies/series such as ‘Trapping’ and ‘Top Boy’ raise the questions of: what can we do to tackle these issues? Trapping actively confronts it.

Trapping is out now and exclusively on The Drop.