The terrible situation in which the anguished mother in our front page report presently finds herself is one with which, tragically, a growing number of families will be familiar. She has had to watch her caring, loving son change into an angry, violent, drug-taking truant. After "shopping" him to the police she now admits that she is afraid of the 14-year-old on her own behalf and that of his two younger sisters.

Although the behaviour of many young people can change when they enter adolescence, her son's transformation appears to have been too dramatic to be put down merely to hormones or even to the emotional backlash to the break-up of his parents' marriage four years ago.

He is exhibiting all the classic signs of someone with a serious drugs problem, yet surprisingly a social worker and a member of the drugs rehabilitation unit at the Council's social services department have decided that is not the case and have ended their involvement.

The mother, who has to live with the nightmare daily, is convinced otherwise. But she finds herself with no-one to turn to and dreads something even more serious happening before help is made available.

There clearly is a gaping hole in the system here which needs addressing. Teenage children who go alarmingly off the rails should not have to attack and injure someone and get themselves into major trouble with the police before their situation can be properly tackled.

The various agencies need to get together and devise a way of intervening in cases like this long before matters have reached this critical stage.