A BOLTON MP is calling for a public inquiry and the resignation of Bolton MP and Home Office Minister Tom Sackville following the death of an 18-year-old heroin addict.

As revealed in last night's BEN, Phillip Saunders - who once played in the same football team as Bolton soap star Paul Nicholls - died last month after three years of heroin abuse.

In a moving article, his mother Sharon spoke of her desperate attempts to get professional help for her son, who was once a promising athlete.

When the teenager turned to crime to feed his deadly habit she begged the court to give him a custodial sentence, and two days before his death she pleaded with the probation service for help.

But her pleading was in vain.

Sharon said she felt badly let down by the "system" and believed Phillip should have been given help to give up heroin, particularly when he was in custody. Now Peter Thurnham, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bolton North-east and his party's spokesman for social services, is calling for a government inquiry into Phillip's death. He also wants the resignation of Bolton West Tory MP Tom Sackville.

He said: "Tom Sackville, the family's constituency MP and minister responsible for drugs at the Home Office, should resign in view of the failure of public agencies to help Sharon."

But Mr Sackville said he had no intention of resigning over the issue, and said it was the Liberal Democrats and pop stars like Noel Gallagher who were impeding the fight against drugs.

He said: "There are huge efforts going on through schools, health education and the police to get the message home to young people that drugs and the people who sell them are dangerous.

"But there are conflicting voices. When a majority party like the Liberal Democrats have a conference vote for the legalisation of drugs it muddies the waters in a damaging way."

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