The devastated parents of a teenager who was murdered after being groomed by a county lines gang have warned that ‘any child’ can fall into the same trap – as video emerged of him being chased by his killers moments before his death.
Joe Dix became trapped in a ‘vicious cycle’ after he was approached in a park aged 15 to courier a package for cash, eventually dealing Class A drugs.
The false ‘glamour’ of easy money ended with him dying in a hail of stab wounds following a terrifying chase through a housing estate by three drug dealers after a county lines member called in his help when they thugs tried to steal his stock and cash.
Occasionally, Joe would avoid coming home to hide the injuries he had suffered from another beating. His mother revealed how she and her husband had also been drawn into a ‘double life’ as they were too ashamed to admit to anyone what was happening.
On Wednesday his killers – who were all in their teens when they murdered Joe – were jailed for a total of more than 60 years.
Mrs Dix, 47 told MailOnline: ‘Don’t be blind. This can happen in front of your eyes. It could be any child. Don’t think it won’t be yours.’
Terrifying footage shows Joe desperately running from Benjamin Gil, Cameron Palmer and Hans Beeharry in Norwich on the night of January 28 last year after he was told to stop them burgling a known crack den.
The teenager was stabbed seven times and died in hospital. Four bladed weapons carried by his killers included a 24ins sword.
Joe Dix, 18, (pictured) was chased to his death by a county lines gang in Vale Green, Norwich, in January last year
Joe’s mother Emma Dix (pictured with Joe) told MailOnline: ‘Don’t be blind. This can happen in front of your eyes. It could be any child. Don’t think it won’t be yours’
Horrifying footage shows the moment Joe was chased through the streets at night by his killers
She added: ‘It’s unthinkable that a child should die before their parents. How can I possibly tell you how it feels to not be able to protect your child.’
His mother Emma, 47, who is on medication for post-traumatic stress disorder, said in a victim impact statement read in court: ‘Listening to the horrific details of the incident that led to Joe’s death and seeing body map images of all his injuries is dreadful.
‘But nothing compared to the shocking footage of Joe running for his life – being chased, followed by the heart-breaking scene of him collapsing.
‘I can’t tell you how many times those scenes have replayed over and over in our heads.’
Sickeningly, the family endured further pain after Joe’s death when internet trolls sent offensive messages, some in the dead lad’s name.
A memorial green near where he died in Vale Green was also desecrated.
Cameron Palmer, 19, (pictured) will serve a minimum of 21 years in prison for Joe’s death
Benjamin Gil, 19, (pictured) will also serve a minimum of 21 years in prison for the teenager’s death
Hans Beeharry, 20, (pictured) will serve a minimum of 20 years for the murder of Joe last year
Terrifying footage shows Joe desperately running from Gil, Palmer and Beeharry in Norwich
It is not clear who is responsible but it is possible county lines gang members are responsible.
Friends said there was no reason to think that Joe would end up operating in the seedy underbelly of society as a drug dealer.
His self-employed carpenter father, Phil, 46, and mother, a radiologist at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, who live in a well-tended four-bedroom house in the village of Salhouse, just outside Norwich, did their best to give their sports-mad son a decent upbringing.
He was predicted good grades, played football four times a week and regularly took part in matches for Sprowston Cricket Club. All this fell away when he became involved in drug dealing.
Joe’s sister Bethany, now 16, had a talent for ballet and performed in Swan Lake with English Youth Ballet at Norwich Theatre Royal in July and recently moved to a dance school in Warrington.
Now, it is more than just a passion. ‘Dancing makes me not think about what happened,’ she explained.
County lines operations – so called because of the supply routes that run from towns and cities into more rural areas – have become endemic in Norfolk, like most counties.
Norfolk Police shut down 74 routes in the four years to April 2023 but many slip through the net.
Joe is pictured with his family – his father Phil Dix, his mother Emma, and his little sister Bethany
Speaking about the death of Joe (pictured as a child), his mother said: ‘I can’t tell you how many times those scenes have replayed over and over in our heads’
The devastated parents of Joe have warned that what happened to their son could happen to anyone’s child
Describing how Joe fell into the wrong crowd, his mother told the BBC an arrest in 2020 for dealing led to him ‘opening up’ about how he had been dragged into the shadowy secret life he was leading.
‘He said he was up the park one day and someone approached him to carry something for money, which is what he did. I don’t think, with his teenage brain, he thought about it,’ she said.
‘It just stemmed from there. He would say he got mugged. They would take the money off him, take the drugs from him – and it would be set up by whoever had given him the drugs.
‘So he was in debt and had to work harder to pay the debt off. It was just a vicious cycle.’
She added: ‘They sold the glamorous lifestyle of easy money – ‘You can earn however much just by doing this, you can buy this, you can buy that’.
‘There were times when I sat in the garden with him and he was crying, saying I wouldn’t understand what he’s seen, what he’s been through.’
During the attack Joe was stabbed seven times, two of which proved to be fatal
Joe was regularly arrested by police and his parents hoped he had turned a corner when he was given a nine-month youth referral order for intent to supply drugs in 2021
‘People didn’t judge us at all because we didn’t tell them what was going on. We led a double life,’ she said.
‘I didn’t want people to think I’d had a bad day at work because something had gone on at home, so I just put a front on and pretended everything was fine.
‘There were times when we both went to work in the morning and we’d had two or three hours’ sleep because we’d had the police round the night before.
‘We didn’t let on. We didn’t tell anybody. We just tried to sort it out ourselves.’
Joe was regularly arrested by police and his parents hoped he had turned a corner when he was given a nine-month youth referral order for intent to supply drugs in 2021 as the 7pm curfew he was given curtailed his drug-related activities.
‘He started to make better choices. In the summer of 2021, he started working for his father. He was learning about the trade and doing fetching and carrying,’ Mrs Dix said.
‘The day he died, he had been to work with his dad. It was a Friday and they had finished at lunchtime.’
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Mr and Mrs Dix set up a charity – the Joe Dix Foundation – to provide a helpline for other families.
‘Hopefully, if someone wants to send a message, we can just talk to them. If one parent picks up on the warning signs, it will be amazing,’ Mrs Dix said.
‘We won’t let Joe be forgotten. He’s died for a reason and it feels fitting that we help people.’
Palmer and Gil, both 19, and Beeharry, 20, all from Norwich, tried to cover their tracks after slaying Joe.
They set fire to the clothing they had worn, disposed of the knives – which have never been recovered – and attempted to destroy their mobile phones by throwing them in a river.
But police pieced together CCTV footage that put them at the scene and they were arrested a fortnight after the attack.
They were convicted after a trial in September and sentenced to life at Norwich Crown Court on Wednesday.
Gil and Palmer were told they would serve a minimum 21 years, while Beeharry will be inside for at least 20 years.
Judge Alice Robinso said no sentence could ever bring back Joe or curb his family’s grief.
Mrs Dix added: ‘We will never get to see, hug, or smell Joe again. Our lives past, present and in the future have changed. Joe is now a memory.’
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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