‘In Gloucester, young boys are carrying weapons’: how violence, drugs and abuse thrive when police fail

Jasper Taitt-Williams, former gang member and a Put The Knives Down Gloucester founder, near the ruins last week. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

Gloucester’s most notorious open-air drug-dealing territory is known as “the ruins”. Close to the shadow of the city’s famous cathedral, the ruins in question refer to the blackened remains of an early Tudor friary church. Alongside lies a patch of green where county lines drug networks and Gloucester’s gangs operate.

A downpour on Thursday afternoon cleared the area temporarily, but Jasper Taitt-Williams knew the reprieve would be brief. “Everyone thinks it is historical and beautiful, but Gloucester has a serious problem with violence.”