23-year-old Rebecca was the girl who had everything.

The eldest child of loving parents, Rebecca got on well with her younger sister and enjoyed foreign holidays every year with her large extended family.

When Rebecca told her parents Brigitte and Donald she was being bullied at primary school they decided to send her to be privately educated at Bolton School to give her a new start.

She wore designer clothes and excelled in disco and ballroom dancing, dreaming of studying in London to become a professional dancer.

When she was 13, Rebecca met Princess Diana on a visit to Bolton School as she was sitting in a wheelchair after hurting her foot while sewing a dance outfit.

And even when Rebecca's parents split up when she was 15, they remained amicable and she went on to gain nine GCSEs and send off for application forms for London's famous drama "school" the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

But heroin was to change all that and just five years after meeting Diana, Rebecca had left the family home in Ladybridge and moved into a squalid bedsit, caring only where her next hit would come from.

Now aged 23, Rebecca is serving a 12-month sentence at Drake Hall prison in Staffordshire for intent to supply heroin.

But there is hope because after putting on weight and doing a hairdressing course she hopes to kick the habit for good on her release next month.

Rebecca gained nine GCSEs including five B grades in Maths, English, French, Textiles and History, at Bolton School before heroin destroyed her life.

She started drinking at 13 and experimented with cannabis before moving on to heroin at 17 and by the time she was 20 she was injecting £40 worth a day.

"My veins were so bad I had to inject in my groin," said Rebecca.

"My appearance was a disgrace.

"I always looked dirty, scruffy with greasy hair. I sold everything out of my flat, leaving me with little more than a bed."

Rebecca's mother Brigitte De Mullet, a 42-year-old sales executive for a marketing agency, recalled what her daughter was like before the drugs took hold.

She said: "Rebecca would not be seen in anything less than designer gear, even her knickers cost £20. She was outgoing and intelligent, she had everything ahead of her.

"She met someone who was into drugs at 17 and it went downhill from there. We didn't know she was taking heroin for a long time, we tried to talk to her but it was hopeless.

"The flat she moved into was a nightmare, it was a case of 'dodge the needles'. All the clothes we had bought her were full of fag burns and she sold everything we had bought to help her - the microwave, the cooker, everything, to buy drugs.

"She dropped to six stone in weight. I feared I would soon be following her coffin."

Mrs De Mullet and her second husband Paul, who live in Smithills, tried several times to get Rebecca clean after being told she would have to join a waiting list to go into rehabilitation.

Their home in Smithills still has locks on the doors and windows installed to keep her in.

"We would lock her in the room and keep checking on her. It was like she was possessed, she called me all the names under the sun," said Brigitte.

"One time we had to take her to court for shoplifting in between and she ran out of the court and went to the police station claiming we were kidnapping her."

She even threatened to turn to prostitution, Brigitte said.

"But we didn't give in. Although some nights when she was living in the flat Paul would drive around the red light district looking for her just in case."

Rebecca has served two terms for shoplifting and last October she was sentenced to 12 months for intent to supply heroin.

Her last three birthdays have been spent in jail and she will be released next week.

The Drug Service has agreed to send Rebecca on a six-month rehabilitation programme following pressure from Mrs De Mullet, but she believes there are not enough resources to tackle Bolton's problem.

"When Rebecca wanted to give up we were told she would have to go on a 12-week waiting list but junkies don't keep to appointments, in three weeks they could be dead. Heroin is an epidemic in Bolton now and there should be more funding to give the help straight away when they need it.

"I think these big stores, who are losing thousands of pounds each week to shoplifters, should sponsor a young person to go on a rehabilitation programme because most are addicts."

Mrs De Mullet is considering starting a support group for parents of drug users to help overcome the stigma attached to admitting your child is an addict.

"If you had told me this would happen to our family I wouldn't have believed it. I want people to know that heroin addicts don't just come from council estates.

"Now I have come round to the idea that if I do one day have to walk behind my daughter's coffin, at least I will know I did all I could to help her and warn others. I am not ashamed to admit what my daughter has done, if people talk about us I don't care. This is what a drug addict's mother looks like. It could happen to you."