'I was a drug dealer because I wanted money fast without having to work for it... I ended up sobbing in prison'

As the cell door slammed shut behind him, 22-year-old Hermengildo Dange broke down in tears.

Scared and shunned by friends and family, the Class A drug dealer had hit rock bottom.

Part of a gang called the Manchester Boys, or Manx, he ran heroin and crack cocaine from Manchester to Southampton for four years.

He was "young and stupid" and "wanted money fast, without having to work for it".

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But Hermen was arrested on the south coast and later sentenced to six years in prison.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin and money laundering.

Hermen served three years at Stangeways prison, exactly half his sentence, and was released in 2020 during the pandemic.

Brought up in Collyhurst, Hermen says he had a good upbringing but veered off course in his mid-teens.

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News , Hermen, now 28, said: "I have made mistakes and followed the wrong crowd.

"I wasn't pressurised to do anything but it was more the rush to succeed.

"I wanted money fast, without having to work for it.

"That's what the majority of people do, they don't want to put the hours in.

"I was young and stupid, aged 17, and I ended up selling Class A drugs, nothing was happening to me, I wasn't getting arrested.

"I was getting away with it and got away with it for a good four-year run.

"I was transporting drugs from Manchester to Southampton.

"I had built a gang around me but I was young and stupid - I didn't realise there was an operation following me.

"I got arrested in Southampton, I was in trouble with the police prior to that for the stupidest things like fighting over drugs.

"I was in