Three years ago 19-year-old Lindsay Adams told her parents that she was addicted to heroin, which she had been introduced to by her older boyfriend.

After a heartbreaking three-year battle with drug abuse, which included nine months in prison, Lindsay, from Calne, has managed to turn her life around and is now totally clean, working hard at an office job and living in her own flat.

Her mum Ann said: "It has been a desperately hard time for the family, but we are so aware of how lucky we have been that Lindsay has managed to get her life together, and my heart goes out to Mr and Mrs Walsh.

"What has happened to them is exactly what we always feared would happen to Lindsay, and it is an appalling tragedy that it should happen to a girl so young.

"Parents automatically blame themselves when your child tells you they are a heroin addict.

"But it's not the parents' fault.

"You can raise your child to know the difference between right and wrong but drugs are out there, teenage girls are confused and vulnerable, and unfortunately there are scumbags who will prey on them and introduce them to drugs."

Lindsay Adams starting smoking marijuana at the age of 14, and then began taking heroin a year later after her older boyfriend, himself a heroin addict, introduced her to it.

Over the next three years Lindsay made many attempts to wean herself off heroin, including going through treatment programmes and cold turkey in her parents home.

Mrs Adams said: "We kept her locked in the house for two weeks while she went through cold turkey, and during that time we had to bolt all the doors and windows and me and her dad had to sleep in shifts to make sure she didn't leave.

"I remember her dad having to physically hold her to stop the shaking, it was awful to see her in that state."

Lindsay eventually managed to kick her habit, but was still seeing her boyfriend and was helping him with a drugs deal when she was caught in the middle of an undercover police operation and sentenced to two years in prison.

Mrs Adams said: "In a way prison was the best thing that could have happened to her.

"During the trial she heard exactly what her boyfriend was really like, and she hasn't had any contact with him since.

"I think the Shop a Pusher line is excellent, as I understand that a lot of people are frightened to give information about drug dealers.

"But they have to be got off the streets"