DESPERATE parents in Barrow are so angry with drug dealers that they want to kill them, a councillor has revealed.

Cllr Sol Wielkopolski said he sat in on a substance abuse sessions on Walney and watched as worried parents raised it as last resort.

He told a council meeting: “I have sat with people who have had their lives wrecked by alcohol and drugs and among parents who were crying because their children were living with drug addicts. The only solution they could see was to go and murder the drug dealers.”

His comments came in a debate about the damaging impacts of children witnessing alcohol and drug abuse while growing up.

An estimated 188,000 adults in Cumbria suffer from an ‘adverse childhood experience’ which can seriously affect their later life and health, a report found.

They were more likely to binge drink, smoke, have poor diets and 11 times more likely to have tried heroin or crack cocaine.

Cllr Wielkopolski said parents who fall into addictions also needed to understand that personal responsibility was needed as much as state support.

“In the sphere of drug dependency, your own personal responsibility is absolutely key to your personal recovery,” said Cllr Wielkopolski, the Conservative councillor for Newbarns and Parkside. “We shouldn’t make this a party political issue and say the state can fix everything.”

Cllr Ben Berry called for more promotion of the ‘family unit’.

Cllr Berry, the Conservative councillor for Windermere, said: “We should be promoting to the people of Cumbria that fathers do have a responsibility to their children and that mothers can increase the life chances of their children by keeping a father around, as long as he is not abusive to her or the children.”

Colin Cox, the director of public health in Cumbria, penned the report which was roundly praised by councillors on all sides of the chamber.

Mr Cox said: “The whole issue of strengthening families is critical. The sort of work we are trying to do is around supporting parents to make sure they can be the best parents they can so they don’t create these sorts of (future) challenges for their children.

“Obviously, many, many people have different experiences in their lives and I certainly don’t want to be the one to tell people that they must try to stay together for the sake of the children. It’s not always the right thing for a family. But we do need to support families to work through their difficulties.”

Cllr Anne Burns, the cabinet member for children’s services, said most kids in care had seen domestic violence and poor families needed financial help.

Cllr Burns, the Labour councillor for Hindpool, said: “We have to invest in those communities. It’s going to take a massive shift in central Government in how we get some of the funding we need to do something about these children – we don’t have it, it has been taken from us.”