We were told to let our son 'reach rock bottom', a year later he was dead

Sam Price, 21, was found dead by his father after a drug overdose
-Credit:Causeway


A 21-year-old died from a drug-overdose after being viciously exploited by criminal gangs. Sam Price was an avid skateboarder and began smoking cannabis when he wanted to fit in with his friends.

But as his habit grew, he fell into an exploitive cycle of selling drugs to fund his habit, with his family claiming he was repeatedly at the receiving end of death threats from gang members. Sam's dad, Simon, explained how his son had ADHD and dyslexia, with him struggling academically.

Around the age of 14, Sam’s behaviour began deteriorating after smoking weed, and he became disruptive and paranoid, eventually becoming excluded from school. His family watched helplessly as their once happy, care-free son, was dragged deeper and deeper into a world of criminal exploitation and addiction, and were at a loss of how to cope.

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His mum, Liz Price, said: "I would regularly hear movement late at night, and I’d go downstairs and Sam would be putting his coat on to go out. Simon was a paramedic, and would be on a nightshift. I would try and tell Sam that he wasn’t leaving the house, but by that time he was 16, and he was 6ft 4. I would get angry, but you could see he was really, really anxious and frightened. He would say ‘I've got to go, I've got to go, I've got to go. And he would more or less push me out the way and go out the front door. I felt so helpless as a parent. It was very frightening. I just didn't know where to turn.”

The family asked Sam's school for support as well as reaching out to social services and local addiction specialists but nothing seemed to help. As Sam’s dependence on drugs increased, so did his debts to the dealers, and his involvement with criminal gangs tightened its grip.

Simon, a retired paramedic, said: “At one point Sam was actually stabbed as a warning shot. It was a message, this time we’ll stab somewhere that's fairly safe, but next time we'll stab you somewhere a bit more critical. I think he just couldn't get out of it. He was so caught up in it, that whatever they said he had to do, he felt compelled to do it.”

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His family explained Sam was so terrified by the gang he feared they would kill him if he didn't do what they said. Liz continued: "There was one point when I was doing a car boot sale with my neighbour. We went off with a car full of stuff that was stored in our garage, including a little chest of drawers.

"I pulled the drawer open, and there were all these drugs in it. I panicked, so I just grabbed it all and hid it under the car seat. When Sam realised what had happened, he was beside himself. He went to my neighbour’s wife and he was going berserk, crying, saying he needed to get hold of me, he was obviously terrified. When we got back, he was saying he was going to get killed.”

Sam Price with his mum Liz
Sam Price with his mum Liz -Credit:Causeway

Sam’s addiction led to a six-day coma, but instead of it being the wake-up call he needed, he turned straight back to drugs the minute he left hospital. “We thought we had lost him, but he came home, then went straight out and started using afterwards,” said dental nurse Liz. “It was just too much to bear.”

At the age of 20, Simon and Liz took Sam to a rehabilitation clinic but couldn't make him stay. They were advised by the staff that Sam wasn’t ready yet, and that they needed to ‘let Sam reach rock bottom.’ They made the difficult decision to ask him to leave the family home. Sam ended up in a bedsit, where his parents would regularly visit him to make sure he was ok.

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In March, 2018, Simon found Sam’s body at the age of just 21. “I think, probably the worst thing in the world I've ever had to do, was go to Liz's work and tell her,” said Simon.

“This sort of bereavement comes with a lot of guilt. The feeling of having let your child down. It’s very hard to live with. We were loving, caring parents that really wanted to do the best for our son. But we were lost. We were out of our depth. We didn't know what to do.”

In hindsight, Liz and Simon say they wished they had known more about the signs of drug addiction and criminal exploitation, and that they had pushed further for support from Sam’s school and local agencies, so they could have intervened earlier.

“People need to know that criminal exploitation can touch any family,” said Tracey Fisher, Sam's aunt. “Criminal exploitation is a form of modern slavery because it’s coercing or forcing someone to do something they don’t want to do.

Tracey, who has awarded an MBE in 2012 for Services to Young People and Services to the Community of Eastham, revealed her family’s story after she made Liverpool based anti-slavery organisation Causeway, her company’s charity of the year.

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Tracey, who is president of the Insurance Institute of Liverpool and lives in Bromborough, said: “I wanted to choose a charity partner that has aims that I can identify with and support. What I had never expected was how relevant and interlinked the work of Causeway was to me and my family, particularly in relation to criminal exploitation."

Causeway CEO Helen Ball, said: "We're very grateful to Tracey, Simon and Liz for sharing Sam's story with Causeway, and helping us amplify our anti-slavery message. Criminal exploitation destroys lives, and unfortunately touches many many families around the UK. Causeway supports people who have experienced criminal exploitation such as Sam, as well as thousands of others who have experienced forced labour, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude.

"Visit Causeway's website to find out more about spotting the signs of modern slavery and human trafficking, and where to get support."