POLICE have written to the parents of up to 20 teenagers in a North Yorkshire community to warn them: your child is mixing with drug dealers.

Sgt Tim Bright, of North Yorkshire police, said the teenagers were deemed at risk of being targeted by pushers peddling both cannabis and heroin because they had been seen with them.

The teenagers and the older drug dealers formed large gangs being watched by police over the last two weekends.

Sgt Bright said letters to parents of the vulnerable 15 and 16-year-olds warned they were at risk of coming under the influence of the pushers and users.

He said: "It is a real and genuine risk. Most of these kids are from good families, they are not that street-wise to be able to say no. There is a lot of peer pressure. They are vulnerable and they are seen to be vulnerable by those who take advantage of them.

"I have spoken to a couple of the parents since, and they have admitted they are concerned about what is going on. They said if we hadn't written they wouldn't have known."

The police operations in Haxby and Wigginton followed a flare-up of problems 11 days ago when a gang of up to 50 rowdy youths blockaded Haxby's main street with bicycles and hurled abuse at a police officer who tried to move them on.

They were eventually dispersed when other officers were called in as back-up.

Sgt Bright said the incident flared up following an evening of minor problems throughout Haxby and Wigginton.

Earlier, youths had attempted to harass members of the public outside the Ryedale Court shopping area into buying them drink.

Later there had been a flare-up of trouble in the Sandylands area, with youths marauding through gardens and openly drinking from bottles of beer.

He said many residents in the Sandylands area were fed up of being 'plagued' by youths. He said: "There has been a real resurgence of the problem."

Dennis Atherton, who runs the Choices video shop in the centre of Haxby, told the Evening Press that potential customers were often driven away by the intimidating sight of hordes of youths hanging around his store.

He said: "There are large gangs of teenagers who roam the streets and behave in an obnoxious manner all the weekend.

"I am trying to run a business and people won't come in because they won't come through the groups of kids. It's a problem but I suppose they've nowhere else to go."

A resident of Sandylands, who did not wish to be named, said: "We had trouble with youths being nuisances. There's been vandalism up and down our road and they need to be moved on. But I don't know anything about drugs."

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