ASYLUM DRUGS DEN SQUALOR OF THE ADDICTS NEXT DOOR TO A SCHOOL

IN its day it was a monument to Victorian industry.

Now a disused warehouse beside a school playground provides a haven
for asylum seekers and drug addicts existing in Dickensian squalor a
couple of miles from Westminster.

As many as 60 drug users, many without a word of English, are
squatting in the former brewery in Stock-well, south London.

They include women and children, Albanians, Romanians, Moroccans and
Portuguese. And they are largely beyond the reach of the law.

Next door is Lansdowne School, where the children are told not to pick
up anything they may find in the playground - syringes have been
discovered, thrown from the brewery's windows.

Those living nearby say the building is a magnet for drug dealers, who
park in neighbouring streets and can be seen slipping in and out to
ply their deadly trade.

And although police have raided the crumbling site to clear out the
addicts and let the council board it up, the uninvited guests break
back in each time, and patrolling officers are reluctant to enter
their needle-strewn den for fear of contracting HIV.

Each day the addicts, most of whom are on benefits, can be seen
collecting prescriptions from a local GP for heroin substitute
methadone and getting their 'fix' on the NHS, courtesy of a nearby
pharmacy.

While identities in this shadowy world are necessarily difficult to
establish, many are understood to be asylum seekers or illegal immigrants.

With state handouts - asylum seekers can claim 90 per cent of income
support - and free methadone, the people in the brewery are costing
taxpayers thousands of pounds a week.

'It's an awful place and every morning there are needles on the
pavement and in the gutter,' said one neighbour. 'I've never been
inside and I wouldn't want to.' Few people would - or should venture
inside the brewery these days. Once a major local employer and
landmark, now it contains scenes hard to believe in the late 20th
century.

There is only one entrance, via a broken window rimmed with spikes,
but once in the visitor may wish he had stayed outside. With no roof,
and many floorboards missing, the stench of human waste is blown
around the shell of the building.

Refugees slump under sheets or sleeping bags on bare boards surrounded
by rubbish, some half-burned to provide some warmth.

The paraphernalia of drug-taking litters the floor: needles, candles,
milk cartons to stand them in, and soot stained teaspoons.

One 'resident', 35-year-old Moroccan Hassan Daqqal said he found the
place a week ago, by word of mouth.

'All here are on drugs,' he said, claiming heroin is used but not
crack cocaine.

'It gets cold in here, but it's warmer than outside. I have only been
on heroin for a month. It's bad stuff.

'There are kids on the street selling heroin who are only about
12.

They don't care what they are doing. I get money for drugs by begging
on the street.' He laughed as he added: 'It's funny, I didn't take
drugs in Morocco.' Brixton police have mounted three operations to
clear the squatters, but each time, despite precautions taken by the
council, they had returned.

'With the resources available, everything that could have been done to
secure the buildings has been done,' said Inspector John Cleave.

A Lambeth Council spokesman added: 'Some people who are drug users are
so desperate to find a place to take drugs, they will do anything to
get in.'

Lansdowne School's head-teacher Ginni Bealing was anxious to play down
any controversy yesterday, saying they had not experienced problems
from the squat. Caretakers routinely patrolled the school to watch for
needles she said.

But local residents have been relieved to learn that the building is
soon to undergo another transformation. It will be turned into flats
by a firm of private developers.

One said: 'It is frightening to have a cesspool like this in the
middle of our neighbourhood.

'We are not kidding ourselves there are drugs all over these days, but
to have something like this acting as a beacon for every drug dealer
in the area puts our children at risk every day.' Hill-crest Homes
paid GBP 1.17million on Wednesday for the listed building and site,
which has been an ambulance station and a council vehicle depot since
the last kegs of beer rolled out in the 1960s.

Once refurbished it should make a handsome profit for the
firm.

More money for the developers, less for the people of Lambeth, whose
council sold it for a knockdown price no doubt substantially affected
by the nature and number of the squatters inside.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady