SHOCKING VIDEO DIARY OF HEROIN ADDICT'S DESPERATE FINAL ATTEMPTS TO
KICK THE DRUG TO BE SHOWN TO SCHOOLCHILDREN

As a bright schoolboy from a loving middle-class family, Ben Rogers
was expected to make a success of his life.

Instead, he started taking drugs as a teenager and turned into a
hopeless heroin addict, intent on scraping money together for his next fix.

In 2006, after 13 years of addiction to the drug, Ben died suddenly
from a brain haemorrhage in hospital while attempting to detox.

During his last months, the 34-year-old filmed a video diary which
showed his final desperate attempts to come off heroin.

Now it could be shown to millions of secondary school pupils across
the UK to give a graphic warning of the dangers of drugs.

After a campaign by his mother Anne Rogers, hours of disturbing
footage have been turned into a short DVD called Sick And Tired Of
Feeling Sick And Tired.

It will be part of an official anti-drugs pack sent out to teachers.

The footage shows him preparing his drugs and talking about their
effect on his life and family. He is also seen sharing his feelings
with his Sooty puppet and injecting heroin into a vein in his groin.

In another section, he tells the camera: 'I hope that when you look
at this afterwards that you don't think I'm self-pitying because I
know that I've done this to myself.'

Mrs Rogers, 70 said Ben - the youngest of four children - showed no
signs of problem behaviour as a young child.

She and her husband, Mike, a design consultant for a pottery, had
high hopes for him while bringing up their family in the village of
Alton, Staffordshire.

By the time he was 12, Ben had begun to drink in secret and by 17 he
was hopelessly addicted to cannabis and other drugs.

'There were no signs or clues,' said Mrs Rogers, a
grandmother-of-nine. 'He had a stable middle-class upbringing and all
his siblings are well-grounded.

'He went to college and worked as a screenprinter but he was addicted
to heroin and it destroyed his life. My son told me at 21 that he was
on heroin and we spent 13 years trying to help him fight his
addiction - but we lost. It is an evil, evil thing.'

Mrs Rogers, who still lives in Alton, said: 'Like many others he
started on cannabis, then started smoking heroin and eventually he
was injecting.'

After the death of her son, Mrs Rogers nursed her husband through the
last stages of cancer before he died nine weeks later. Despite her
loss, she was determined to warn teenagers of the effects of hard drugs.

Shortly before he died, Ben gave what he had recorded to Darren Teale
from Junction 15, a small independent video-arts company based in
Stoke-on-Trent.

Mr Teale edited more than 30 hours of harrowing footage to make a
20-minute film which charts the last weeks of Ben's addiction.

Then, Mrs Rogers contacted Government ministers, health departments,
and drug and alcohol services about the DVD.

Initially the hard-hitting education pack including the film has gone
to schools in Staffordshire but she is pressing the Home Office to
make it available nationwide.

She said: 'Ben came from a happy, middle-class family. Friends say
that if it can happen to us, it can to anyone.

'It's all very painful to watch but I'm willing to go through it time
and again if it can help stop the same happening to other youngsters.

'The final scene is perhaps the hardest. Ben is desperately searching
for a vein to inject into.

'He looks as if he is dying as the heroin passes into his body. It's
as if you can see his life just ebbing away.'

The DVD has already been shown to college students across
Staffordshire and used by local police to give officers an insight
into addiction.