MOTHER TELLS OF HEROIN BLIGHT OF MIDDLE ENGLAND

A RETIRED nurse who looked on helplessly as three of her four daughters
became addicted to heroin said last night she feared that her youngest
child would be killed by the drug.

Theresa Dodd said that she had decided to speak about the family secret to
warn other parents that the scourge of heroin abuse was not confined to
inner cities, but could strike families from any social background. From
her UKP400,000 home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, she spoke of the unbearable
anguish and pain she has suffered since drug addiction wrecked her family.

"I may have a Mercedes and a good lifestyle but if anyone thinks you are
immune from heroin they are much mistaken," she said.

Mrs Dodd, 60, and her husband, Charles, a senior partner in a London
solicitor's firm, sent their daughters to private schools. Antonia, 30,
Thomasina, 28, and Angelica, 21, were all introduced to the drug after
using cannabis, she said.

The family's plight reached crisis point recently when Angelica, a talented
violinist and singer, walked out of hospital where she was being treated
for a kidney complaint. She has since been spotted begging and busking on
the streets of Tunbridge Wells to raise money to feed her habit.

Her mother now fears that unless Angelica returns to hospital to undergo a
detoxification programme she could become seriously ill.

Mrs Dodd said she had at one point sat with Angelica on the street and
desperately tried to persuade her of her family's love for her.

"I want her to do something about saving her life, but I can't imprison
her," she said. "I am doing this because I want her to know how much she
means to me.

"I really want Angelica to take herself forward and understand that what
she is doing is really serious. I will never let go and never stop doing
whatever I can to show how much I love her. I don't want to go to my
daughter's funeral."

Antonia, who has four A levels, kicked the habit a year ago after returning
to live at the family home. Thomasina, who lives away from home, became
hooked on the drug four years ago and is still a user.

Mrs Dodd said: "I am so frightened and so angry. Not angry with anyone but
just angry that there isn't anything anyone can do. I feel like a wrung-out
rag. I am bleeding on the inside. You cannot see the blood, but I am
bleeding from distress."

She added that she had been moved by the harrowing photographs in the press
three weeks ago of Rachel Whitear, 21, taken after she died of a heroin
overdose.

"I have seen a picture of the dead body of a girl and I fear being one of
those parents who talks after her child's death. I am not going to let my
child die. I want to try to do something now but I worry that I might only
make things worse." She said that drug addiction was rife in Tunbridge
Wells, a town said to typify Middle England.

Angelica, who ran away from school at the age of 14 after she began
drinking, became addicted to heroin about two years ago. Mrs Dodd said her
daughter was not eating properly and was also drinking heavily.

She added that she had a good relationship with them and was able to talk
to them about their addiction, but her husband had been bewildered by their
plight.

Their fourth daughter, Seraphina, 19, has suffered from the effects of
seeing her sisters deteriorate while using the drug.

Mrs Dodd said she did not know who was supplying the drugs or how much
money her two daughters who were still using heroin needed to fund their habit.

She added that she had come to rely heavily on the Roman Catholic Church
for support during the ordeal. Canon Michael Evans, parish priest at St
Augustine's, who has helped Mrs Dodd, said that the town had a considerable
drug problem. "I am afraid I don't think we are different from any other
part of the country in that respect," he said. "The young people know that
drugs are easy to get hold of. That is not to say that all young people
here take drugs but, perhaps in middle-class areas, the problem is worse
because young people have money to buy drugs."

Mrs Dodd said: "I really need to find other mothers so we can do something
between us. There is nothing we can do to stop our children being addicts,
but at least we can support ourselves."

Antonia Turner, the couple's eldest daughter, is estranged from her own
husband, Frank, with whom she has two daughters. She said she was fearful
for her two younger sisters who, unlike her, still used heroin. "Having
taken drugs for a long time, the first time I was offered heroin it didn't
seem like a big deal," she said. "Partly it was fun and partly because it
starved off the depression and loneliness I was feeling at the time. When I
look back to the time when I was a kid I could never have imagined I'd do
anything like this."

All three daughters have spent time in rehabilitation clinics, paid for by
their parents.

"I am under so much strain at the moment and I just do not know what to
do," Mrs Dodd said.

"But I do want to tell the whole world about it. I do get a lot of support
from my Catholic church and from my friends, because I am very open."