A TEENAGER, part of a Dawlish drugs gang, was caught drug dealing for the third time and told police ‘I will always go back to what I know’.

Finley Walsh was groomed by gangs from the age of 12 and has been arrested repeatedly while acting as a runner for them.

He was first exposed to alcohol and drugs aged nine and dropped out of mainstream schooling before he reached secondary school. 

He joined a County Lines crime group using children in care to sell drugs in towns in Devon including Dawlish. 

The gang leaders were jailed last year but Walsh, still a juvenile, received a Youth Rehabilitation Order and was meant to have been receiving intensive supervision.

He returned to drug dealing after he lost his supported accommodation when he turned 18 and ceased to be under local authority care. He was caught within months but his sentence deferred to give him a final chance by a judge at Exeter Crown Court.

Walsh was arrested for the final time in April this year while trying to flee from a police raid. 

He told arresting officers: ‘I hope you realise I have nothing to go back to. I will always go back to what I know.’

The arrest made him liable for a mandatory seven year sentence as a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ class A drug dealer, even though he is still only 18. 

Judge Stephen Climie decided not to implement that sentence at Exeter Crown Court. 

Walsh, of no fixed address, admitted possession of heroin and crack with intent to supply and was jailed for three years.

Judge Climie said Walsh’s background of being groomed by a gang at a young age meant there were exceptional circumstances which justified not implementing the mandatory sentence. 

He said: ‘Nobody can understate the impact on young people of being exposed to drugs. The psychologist’s report in this case was one of the most depressing things I have ever read.’ 

Miss Althea Brooks, prosecuting, said Walsh was arrested while running away from a house and found with £1,500 of heroin and crack ready to be sold on the streets.

Miss Rachel Smith, defending, said Walsh had grown up in a house where drink and drugs were abused and been failed by those looking after him in care and were supposed to support him once he turned 18. 

He recalled having to shoplift his uniform for school when he was 10 and had been left at home for a year after it was recommended that he was taken into care. He has the reading age of an 11-year-old and has been diagnosed with ADHD. 

He became homeless at 18. He started sofa surfing and was recruited by the same drug dealers he had worked for previously.

Miss Smith said Walsh is small for his age and looks younger than 18, spending most of his time in prison alone in his cell because he is afraid of sexual assault. She said: ‘He is gift wrapped for sex offenders in prison.’