Children as young as 12 are being given drugs to deliver by their parents as the cost of living crisis bites.

Two youngsters were handed packages by their mum to take from their Kent home - and they then enlisted the help of friends of the same age.

The story is particularly shocking but symptomatic of a wider rise in county lines dealing in recent months, according to reformed gang member and charity boss Lennox Rodgers.

He runs Refocus Project, which helps young people get away from gangs and has been inundated with referrals from parents, social services and young people referring themselves and friends.

County lines refers to the criminal method of running drugs (usually class As like heroin and crack cocaine) from the capital to less saturated markets.

Mr Rodgers said: "The cost of living crisis has created more demand for drugs as people struggle to make ends meet.

"Children and adults have been more willing to get involved in different aspects of county line drug dealing to earn extra cash, but children are better for dealers to work with because they are easier to control and the consequences are less for them than for adults."

He said there has also been an increase in reports of children being used to launder money and cuckoo homes, the practice of using a vulnerable person's house to prepare and sell drugs.

"Once you are involved in that life it's usually very difficult to get out as some gangs deliberately set children and adults up so that they lose their money and drugs and then are in debt so now they have to keep working to pay the debt," he added.

Mr Rodgers previously explained people are more willing to consider drug dealing as prices and bills rise as they are becoming desperate.

Gangs know who these people are and how to target them, he explained.

He said: "People who can't afford to heat their house, they have to make the decision - heat or eat. They're targets for cuckooing where their house becomes a drug den."

Last year, Boris Johnson pledged to eradicate county lines dealing with a £300 million three-year plan to smash more than 2,000 county lines across the country.

It came as shocking statistics showed there are 300,000 heroin and crack addicts in England who are responsible for nearly half of acquisitive crime, including burglary and robbery, while drugs drive nearly half of all homicides. The total cost to society is put at nearly £20 billion a year.

Class A drug use is up by 27% since 2010.