"IF someone you know, a friend or even a close family member, becomes involved in heroin, you are left trying to cope with a nightmare."

Diana, Princess of Wales, wrote those words just a few months before her death in 1997.

She was writing a foreword to a guide designed especially for parents who discover - either accidentally or when told by detectives - that their child has become a heroin user.

Or worse, a heroin dealer.

A copy of the guide sits on the desk of Detective Constable Nigel Brookes, of the Northwich police drugs squad. Since January, he has taken charge of four major heroin busts in Northwich and the surrounding villages.

He can understand perfectly the Princess' sentiments.

"I am personally alarmed and depressed by the recent rise of heroin in this area," he said.

"The number of dealers is going up, while the age of users is coming down. It leaves the relatives picking up the pieces after we have dealt with them.

"Heroin doesn't see social boundaries. It doesn't care what a person's background is, or what type of house they live in. It shatters any home."

The news of someone's addiction usually comes as a shock, said Nigel. Friends and family - even those with whom the addict shares their home - can be completely unaware of the situation.

"Parents think they'll see it coming, but addiction doesn't show up the way people think it will," he added.

"Someone came to us with a faint suspicion that their son might have been a drug user. We found out the son had been on heroin for three years."

Heroin is highly addictive. Once addicted, a user can flush away as much as £90 a day indulging the habit. The obvious way to fund it is petty crime, and if that doesn't pay enough, the user becomes a dealer.

It has happened - repeatedly - in Northwich. There are the solo dealers, and the drugs rings involving a small gang of dealers. Nigel's squad raided six during the last 12 months, including three highly-publicised raids in Barnton, Castle and Weaverham.

In each of those cases, a family home had been used as the base for a heroin operation, often with toddlers and young children in the same house.

The drugs team has dealt with people who started using heroin at the age of 14. The youngest person arrested was aged 15. Many people, says Nigel, go straight onto heroin, never even trying the supposed 'lighter' drug, cannabis.

He added: "Our colleagues in Manchester and Liverpool are shocked to hear how many we are bringing in."

Becoming a dealer is ludicrously easy, too. All the dealer needs is a mobile phone to connect him with his supplier, and with his buyers.

The ones who so often elude capture are the barons, the city-based gangs who set up and supply the dealers.

Judge Stephen Clarke, of Chester Crown Court, knows all about them. He felt something of Nigel's own depression as he jailed a Weaverham dealer for his part in a heroin ring last month.

He told the man: "You are a victim of a vile trade.

"I have little doubt that there are people above you who were happy to use you.

"The great pity is that we sentence people like you regularly, but rarely get the chance to sentence those who are behind the evil that you wreak."

Of course, Nigel Brookes would warn young people away from getting involved in heroin.

But it's not just because he knows what addiction will do to the body of the addict. It's not just because Judge Clarke and his colleagues want to see the barons stripped of their power-base.

It's also because he knows his squad is extremely good at catching dealers. And when the offenders are sentenced, he sees what happens to the families who are left to cope with the nightmare.

There are many ways to find out more about heroin. You can ring the Northwich branch of the Drug Intervention Service on 01606 860322, or your local doctor. There's also the Cheshire Drugs Clinic is on 01270 216118.

If you have information on drug-related crime, ring Nigel and his team on 01244 613224, or freephone 0800 854181.

The National Drugs Helpline, for users and parents, is on 0800 776600.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.