Ruthless dealers in Bradford are using children, in some cases their own, as drugs mules.

The revelation comes as figures obtained by the Telegraph & Argus show that a total of 69 under-17s, including a 12-year-old boy, have been arrested for drugs offences in the district.

Parents have now been urged to question their children about their lifestyles as West Yorkshire Police warned that courts which sentence dealers who have been caught using youngsters as runners would take a particularly hardline against them.

Figures revealed to the T&A show that between 2009/10, 23 boys aged 14 to 16 and a 16-year-old girl were arrested for the offences of supplying controlled drugs or possession with intent to supply.

In 2010/11, 24 boys, including a 12-year-old, were arrested and, for 2011/12, there were 18, 14 to 16-year-old boys and three girls aged 15 and 16 arrested.

Across West Yorkshire, 253 youngsters, including an 11-year-old boy, were arrested during the same period.

The T&A has previously reported how youngsters as young as eight were being used as drug runners for heroin dealers on some of the district’s housing estates making doorstep deliveries using drink cans.

Bryan Dent, West Yorkshire Police’s drug force co-ordinator warned that drug dealers were “intuitive, manipulative and savvy”.

“If they see a successful way to deal drugs they will use it and if that means using young people they will,” Mr Dent said.

“I would be naive if I said to you there were no drugs suppliers in Bradford who are not using or trying to use youngsters as articles of delivery figures.

“We can never rule anything out where drug dealers are concerned because they are entrepreneurial and if they see a niche they will do it.

“There are unscrupulous parents, carers, sons and daughters who would use youngsters as a vehicle to deliver their drugs to probably attract less attention than themselves.

“Drug dealers are reckless people and use any method they can to avoid detection.”

Jon Royle, the chief executive of the Bridge drugs charity in Bradford, said he had also heard of cases where adult drug dealers used children as runners in the supply chain.

“I think it reflects the nature of drug suppliers who are ruthless and without scruples,” he said.

“When dealers use children they are taking it to another level of cowardice, putting children between them and the law.”

But Mr Dent also stressed that most young people did not take drugs.

“I think that is something we need to highlight to parents and carers and actually young people themselves,” he said.

“There is a little bit of a misperception, a little bit like the perception of sex, where at school you think everyone is doing it but when it boils down to it not many people are.

“It is like that with the perception of drugs.

“A lot of young people and their mates think they are all taking drugs, but actually the statistics clearly state most young people do not take drugs.”

He said that a project within Bradford schools works on developing strategies on drugs use and prevention and helping youngsters develop skills to say no to illegal substances.

He said: “You have got to give the kids the data and facts to make their own minds up.”