Today, for the first time, the lover of the late Rod Hills has spoken of their life together. In a frank interview, Julie Long told Chief Reporter MIKE LAYCOCK how the former York council leader rescued her from her life on the streets - and changed her forever.

JULIE LONG was put into care when she was two, started drinking and smoking weed in her teens, and went shoplifting to make a living.

By the time she was 20, she was using heroin, and a year later she was on crack and earning money from prostitution to pay for the habit.

Julie said: "I was put into care when I was two, and went into foster care. They were OK but it wasn't the same as the real thing.

"I started getting into trouble in my teens. I started drinking and smoking weed.

"My mother had me back when I was 13, but kicked me out when I was 15.

"I lived on the streets. I got in with people that were a lot older than me, and were into alcohol and drugs. I started shoplifting to make a living.

"At 15, I started taking amphetamines, but I started using heroin when I was 20 and crack the year after. That was when I started street-walking, to pay for the habit. I needed £200 or £300 a day.

"It made me cry the first time I did it. I was raped by two men on one occasion.

"I was jailed for 12 months for shoplifting, and was fined about six times for soliciting.

"Rod picked me up when I was in Portland Square, in St Paul's, Bristol.

"He didn't say what he was doing there. I had a flat and we went back for sex.

"Afterwards, we got talking. He seemed a really nice person. I told him about the heroin and the crack.

"I gave him my number and he phoned me back a week later. I was in a really bad relationship, getting beaten up, and I wanted to get out of Bristol. Rod said he was from York, and I said I had a contact in Leeds, and he took me up from Bristol to Leeds in his car. The contact wasn't there, so he put me up in a hotel for two nights.

"Eventually, I got a little flat in Chapeltown and he came and saw me a few times, but then he didn't see me for a while.

"He didn't mention anything about him being a councillor at that time. Then he phoned again and said he would like to see me. By then, I was really depressed by the drugs, and really wanted to get off them, and he asked me to come and live with him in York.

"I was still addicted, and he would drive with me out to Leeds every day or every other day to buy crack and heroin. He was spending up to £70 a day. By now I knew he was a councillor, but he didn't talk a lot about it, and was a lecturer.

"One day in June, I met someone I knew in Leeds who had seen me before with Rod and he said Rod had been seen smoking crack at a bedsit where it was sold.

"I was shocked. I couldn't believe it at first. Here was a guy who was trying to help me come off drugs and he was taking them himself. I confronted him straight away. I said: 'A friend of mine has told me you were seen smoking crack'.

"He said: 'Yes, I did'. He never smoked it in front of me. I don't think he was addicted, but I was concerned he could become addicted.

"He said he was unhappy. I think it was something to do with Carol, although he wouldn't sit down and talk to me about things.

"He mentioned the police... the stress.

"He was swearing about them reopening the investigation. He always insisted it was an accident.

"He paid £3,000 for me to go to a detox clinic in Harrogate for a five-day course in July.

"When I came out, I needed something to focus on, so he paid for me to have membership of a gym, and arranged for me to go on a college GCSE psychology course.

"He did his best to help me, although we sometimes ended up with huge arguments."

"He had dropped me off at the gym at 5pm. I expected him back by 9pm, but he didn't come and I knew something was wrong. I rang his mobile, but there was no answer. The next morning, the police told me he had been found dead. I just felt numb.

"I miss him like mad. He was always kind to me. He took me out of that life and gave me a new life and that's what keeps me strong. My memory of him will keep me going. I am hoping to get a job now.

"Had it not been for Rod, I would probably still be street-walking in Bristol and on drugs. I don't even drink now.

"No one has ever done anything like that for me before, and I am very grateful."

Updated: 10:49 Friday, September 19, 2003