EXCLUSIVE: Emma Dix said her son Joe had a normal upbringing with a traditional family background but got trapped in a county lines gang after being approached in a park after school
A mum whose teenage son was stabbed to death has said child exploitation “destroys” families.
Emma Dix’s 18-year-old son Joe was “savagely” stabbed seven times in 2022 in Norwich after he was lured into a gang just age 13. Emma said Joe had a normal upbringing with a traditional family background but got trapped in a county lines gang after being approached in a park after school.
He would often go missing, at one point for 10 days, and aged 15 was charged after being arrested in a property with £12,000-worth of drugs money there, his mum said.
“The years and years of Joe like being exploited just destroys you as a family,” Emma told The Mirror. “As a child, it stole his childhood away from him. The pressure on him, he used to get so cross. There were almost two sides of Joe. When he was at home, he was this family-loving young man. He was funny and he used to take the mick out of us all and stuff like that.
“And then, when he was out, he was just this completely different person. And obviously, we never sort of got him back, and we had loads of help from social services, and the police, and the school were really good, but he just got too deeply involved in that sort of lifestyle in the end.”
She said her son got a phone call one normal Friday evening when he “was having his tea”, telling him to “come and help because the flat is being robbed”.
She continued: “Joe basically off and went, and when he got there, there were three people from a rival gang in Norwich that basically were all armed with knives, attacked Joe quite savagely, and then they walked off and left him there.”
Emma and her husband Phil have since set up an anti-knife crime charity in Joe’s name, which opened Norfolk’s first knife-surrender bin on the fourth anniversary of their son’s death in January.
Hans Beeharry, Benjamin Gil and Cameron Palmer were convicted in the killing of Mr Dix at Norwich Crown Court in October 2023.
Ruthless county lines gangs that exploit vulnerable kids to do their “dirty work” trafficking drugs or carrying weapons faced record criminal action in the last year. Almost 3,000 drug dealing lines have been shut down and just shy of 1,500 knives have been seized under a relentless drive to break the criminal network.
The Mirror joined British Transport Police (BTP) officers on a major county lines operation on Tuesday where more than 40 uniformed or undercover police officers, drug dogs and safeguarding experts descended on Stratford train station in east London.
Emma welcomed the Government’s county lines crackdown but also called for more support for children after they turn 18. “Child criminal exploitation is a form of child abuse, so it’s when the adults are using the child for their own personal gain to do illegal things,” she said.
“The difficulty is, though, what happens when they turn 18? They’re not one day a victim and the next day a perpetrator.”
She said Joe went from having three meetings a week and contact with social workers to “nothing” when he turned 18. “In my eyes, Joe lasted a month into 18, that was it. I’m not saying it was because he didn’t have any of that support, but that couldn’t have helped,” she added.
