Our daughter was taken by heroin

The bubbly Tyldesley teenager had taken a heroin overdose and choked on her own vomit.

It was a tragic end to the 16-year-old's life which began with so much promise and ended in her being forced to sell her body in the red light area of Bolton.

Charlene's parents, Mark and Carole, decided to speak about the heartbreak of losing their only child in the hope it will stop other people dying at the hands of heroin.

Painfully sifting through their memories of Charlene, the couple said they can trace the beginning of her slow slide to death to 1997, when the family moved from Tyldesley to Farnworth.

Their daughter was 12 years old and was a star pupil at Fred Longworth High School. In her school report the teachers could not praise her highly enough.

But she never settled at her new schools in Farnworth and also started mixing with the wrong kind of people.

She began seeing a boyfriend who was in his late teens and her parents now believe she was taking heroin at the age of 13.

"She used to come in the house at night and looked ill and couldn't keep awake," said her mother.

"She said she had been drinking and I told her off. I know now it must have been the heroin."

In a matter of months, Charlene had stopped attending school.

By summer last year her parents had heard that their daughter was taking heroin and they started their desperate fight to save her.

But the teenager was not prepared to listen at first and left the family home for a squat in Farnworth where many drug users hung out.

Less than a week later Charlene returned, looking a ghostly figure of her former self.

Her mother, aged 41, said: "She was a mess. She was full of scabs, she was filthy and her hair was falling out. "She said to us, 'I don't want to be a smack-head anymore'."

Her parents went to the squat, grabbed her belongings and brought her home.

The couple had already been through an ordeal, but nothing could have prepared them for what Charlene was about to tell them.

She said she had been forced to work in Bolton's red light district to raise money which was then passed on to her boyfriend, who was waiting nearby in his car. He would then spend the money on drugs.

"When Charlene told me about the prostitution I just thought 'oh god girl, how must you be feeling inside'. She knew she had ruined herself."

Mr Dyson, aged 42, said: "It's terrible, just terrible, to know your child was forced to do something like that. She was frightened of him and had to do what he said."

Mrs Dyson added: "She told us everything, some things you did not want to hear. But we were glad she was being honest.

"It is still difficult for us, but it must have been horrendous for Charlene to have to live with that."

Now they would like to see positive steps to tackle the drugs problem.

Mr and Mrs Dyson had to watch their daughter go through her withdrawal symptoms locked in her bedroom.

Her mother said: " She was screaming with pains in her stomach. She said it was like hell and she wanted to die."

At one point a doctor was called. He said if Charlene had not come off heroin when she did, she would have died.

To try to get her away from Farnworth, her parents sent her to their old neighbours in Tyldesley.

They looked after her over Christmas and the family later moved back to Castle Street in the town.

Mr Dyson said: "She was like her old self. Dancing and laughing."

But within weeks she had met another group of people in Tyldesley who abused drugs.

She met a new boyfriend, who her parents soon found out was a user. When Mr Dyson searched her bedroom one day after the teenager had been with her he found a spoon which drug users often use for the preparation of heroin.

In a further attempt to wean Charlene off the drug, Mr Dyson's nephew said he would look after her.

She moved into his house and was treated to water-skiing and meals out. She went to the gym regularly and after a few sessions on the sun bed started to look healthy again.

He said: "She looked so healthy. She promised me then she would never go back on heroin."

One night her parents returned to their home in Tyldesley and could hear water running.

Carole went upstairs and as she walked into the bathroom she saw her daughter slumped on the toilet, her head resting on the sink.

She was naked, her feet had turned black and on the floor there was a used syringe.

Mrs Dyson said she knew instantly she was dead.

Mr Dyson said: "I didn't want to go upstairs. But eventually I did and I just put my arms around her to feel for a heart beat, but there was nothing.

"I think it was a cry for help. She would have known the next day we would have checked her arms for marks."

Mr and Mrs Dyson must now try to carry on with their lives, while they re-live the memories of their daughter and look through family photograph albums at their home near Chorley.

The couple said she was a good singer and weeks before she died a band had contacted her asking if she would sing with them. When she was younger she loved horse riding.

Looking through the family album at the pictures of her as a child, they still can not believe she has gone.

Last week they met anti-drugs campaigner Paul Betts, whose daughter Leah died after taking an Ecstasy tablet at her 18th birthday party, and their own message to both young people and parents is clear.

Mr Dyson said: "Children have got to be very strong and not get involved in drugs. Parents should try to find out all they can about drugs and look for the signs. We just hope people will read this and at least one life will be saved."