Child Exploitation conviction in Scotland

A drug dealer has admitted exploiting a schoolboy to sell drugs for him in one of the first convictions of its kind in Scotland, reports the BBC.

Matteullah Siddiqi preyed on the 14-year-old boy after having initially met him at a games arcade in Glasgow last year. The boy was forced to skip school and stay in drug dens, and was only rescued when teachers became concerned and he admitted what he had been doing. Siddiqi, 20, faces a lengthy prison term after he admitted to a charge under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act. He will be sentenced next month.

Siddiqi met the boy in Glasgow's St Enoch Centre during the school summer holidays in 2025 and asked if he "wanted to start making money". The boy initially refused as he believed the dealer was talking about drugs. But the High Court in Glasgow heard Siddiqi eventually persuaded the child to team up with him by suggesting he could use the cash to help his mother.

The boy's school attendance deteriorated and he was not a school at all for an 11-day stretch in September. It was around that time that teachers became concerned and got in contact with his mother. The boy later told them at a meeting he had missed school because he had been playing football on his own in a park but train tickets to Ayr were found on his phone. The boy asked for his mum to leave the room and then confessed he had been delivering "heavy drugs" given to him by a 19 year-old male at a flat in Glasgow's east end. His mother was "distraught" on being told the truth, the court heard. 

The boy was referred to the Home Office National Referral Mechanism and it was concluded he had been a "victim of exploitation". A number of offenders have been convicted under the Human Trafficking Act, but this case is thought to be one of the first involving a child being exploited to deal class A drugs for financial gain.

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