CARLY Bateman died a violent death. She was strangled, stripped and her naked body, denied every vestige of dignity, dumped in an alleyway.

Carly was 17 and addicted to crack cocaine and heroin. She had been working as a prostitute to fund her drug habit.

Those are the cold, hard facts behind the premature end of the young vice girl's life but they tell only the final chapter. By now, much of how she came to end up in an alleyway in Bolton's red light area is public knowledge, following the publicity surrounding her murder and subsequent trial and conviction of her killer.

However, it beholds us all, that is those of us with children and grandchildren, to dwell a little longer on the reasons for Carly's descent into a personal hell and what we can do to prevent the same thing happening to them.

Following the trial, her mother said: "That's justice for Carly but there are killers still out there. Crack cocaine and heroin. They can strike anywhere, any time."

The message was clear: What had happened to Carly Bateman could happen to anyone, no matter how settled, secure or privileged their background. And by a disturbing coincidence, it came on the day the Government acknowledged, indirectly admittedly, that their 'Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain', launched in a blaze of publicity in April, 1998, was pretty much dead in the water.

Those of you with long memories will recall that the then newly-appointed drugs tsar Keith Hellawell outlined a 10-year policy to 'stifle the availability of drugs and enable young people and former drug users to live healthy and crime free lives'. Brave words. Sadly they proved unattainable and, faced by a determined, global army of drug traffickers, the Government has scaled down its lofty targets to ones described as 'achievable'.

So what do we do, and by 'we' I mean you and me, not just the Government, police and various agencies battling drug abuse in the UK?

Shock tactics and educating youngsters on the dangers must be worth trying, though no one could claim they are 100 per cent successful. They were part of Keith Hellawell's long-term strategy. Only four and a half years later he is gone, and cocaine use is running at record levels.

The most sobering statistic of all is that since 1971, the number of registered drug users has risen from 1,000 to 250,000. The 'real' figure is estimated as being in excess of three and a half million.

The huge profits involved ensure that drug barons and their battalions of pushers will continue to operate. The threat of imprisonment seems not to deter them unduly. Perhaps all we can do is keep on warning our youngsters about the dangers and hoping the Carly Bateman story will have an effect. If it does, she will not have died in vain.