The mother of a 20-year-old man who died following a five year battle with cocaine addiction has said that our young people are being failed by the system.
Gerard McCrory from Poleglass died in hospital on 30th May after suffering complications as a result of his addiction.
Now his mother Geraldine Ní Chonluain says that she hopes that by sharing his story, it makes young people think twice before touching drugs.
Read more: 'It ripped out my soul': Belfast mum's pain after son's sudden death
"Gerard was a brilliant boy growing up. He had ADHD but he didn’t get into trouble. He was into his motorbikes and he was a great footballer winning loads of medals when he played for Colin Valley football team.
"At the age of 15 he started going down to Divis, getting in with the wrong crowd and started taking cocaine.
"From that, the past five years have been hell trying to get him some help. He had been in and out of Woodlands and Hydebank and they kept letting him out on bail with every charge he got.
"I had to actually get down on my knees one day in the court and beg the judge to put him in jail to keep him alive."
Two weeks before Gerard died, he had two cardiac seizures after taking cocaine and he was told if he took any more his heart would stop. He continued to take cocaine.
At the time, Gerard had been released from prison on licence with his conditions including a ban on the consumption of narcotics.
Geraldine told us that she had informed the Probation Board for Northern Ireland that Gerard had breached his license by taking cocaine.
"On the Tuesday morning I rang the Probation Board and told them that he was back on drugs," she said.
"I told them that he was going to be found dead."
Geraldine said she was told that Gerard would be tagged and subjected to drugs testing going forward. While Gerard was fitted with a tag, she said that the drug testing never took place.
"Five minutes after he died, I got a call from Probation telling me that Gerard was being arrested for breaking his bail conditions," she continued.
"If they had have drug tested him, he could have been back in Hydebank. I know it wouldn’t have been the best place for him but he would have still been alive."
When Gerard took ill in the family hot tub, his mother and a neighbour performed CPR on him until the police arrived with a defibrillator followed by the ambulance who took over.
"They told us from the start that it wasn’t looking good. There was no activity in his brain but they took him off his machines to see what way he was," Geraldine added.
"His heart was beating and he was trying to breathe on his own. There was no water in his lungs so he didn’t have a seizure, his heart just stopped completely.
"In the hospital while he was still on the machines his organs started to fail. We were told that we would eventually have to turn the life support machine off but he ended up passing away while still on the machine."
Geraldine said that she hopes after what happened to her son, it leads to other young people in the same situation being properly monitored.
" He was on licence and they told me they were going to get him drug tested that week. Nobody came to test him and nobody came to take him back to custody when he breached his conditions by taking drugs.
"Our kids are being failed and if anything, I hope what happened Gerard scares somebody into thinking twice before they take drugs.
"The doctor told me that the cocaine they are bringing into this country is mixed with chemicals before it even comes in to make it more addictive and this attacks the heart.
"That is why people who are taking it long term are having seizures and are ending up dead.
"Gerard was told that two weeks ago and continued to take drugs, people continued to give him it."
A spokesperson for the Probation Board for Northern Ireland said: "The death of a young man is a tragedy and our sympathies are with Mr McCrorys family at this difficult time.
"A high proportion of people under Probation supervision struggle with mental health and substance misuse issues, and the complexity of people we are working with is increasing.
"We work with Service Users to help them access appropriate support and counselling services and while we can’t discuss the details of individual cases, a comprehensive risk management response was in place in this case.
"Probation staff are committed and motivated to support people to change lives for safer communities."
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