Britain's Most Wanted Man Escapes From Prison: Ray Bishop

I've been to 31 different prisons and prisons Never Scared me my set of big padlock handcuffs like that and handcuffed to a prison officer as well and I had 12 prison officers with me in a in a little weight I basically escaped because I um I ended up taking two prison officers hostage and with the notes we used to write a note literally sometimes not even ever have a weapon write a demand gnome hand it under the counter and you are walking around the wing of [ __ ] Killers people who will kill you like that [Music] right welcome to the show mate pleasure Dodge thanks for having me yeah and I'm looking forward to this one mate before we start let's just um tell me the little story about your book here with Virgin signing you well basically what happened is have you seen it uh Outlaw yeah but that's that's my book it's a bit sensationalized it says learning lessons the hard ways Britain's Most Wanted Man because I was a I lived that life I was a prison escapee etc etc so it was a bit sensationalized but it was a book that I wrote I was very fortunate um in that I got involved in some reform work in terms of my own Rehabilitation and and I was inspired by someone uh another someone in that that world who said to me you need to write your story it's quite inspirational I never looked at it like that and uh I wrote the book and it was never a book about giving it the big I am or promoting crime or none of that nonsense it was really an attempt for me to one makes sense in my own life and two to compounding my own Rehabilitation and I would also say most importantly to try and carry a message to others that you can get out of this way of life it doesn't pay you know I wanted to be really graphic about the the horrors and and everything that goes with crime and criminality and creating victims and and and and so I wrote it and I was very fortunate that when it was um it went to one publisher and they immediately said this needs to go to a major publisher I was quite Blown Away by that amazing I didn't leave school as an educated person or anything and uh he went to Virgin and virgin said we need to release this I was very fortunate good for you good for you let's um let's get cracking let's roll all the way back where did you grow up and what was your childhood like well I grew up in um South East London a place called Woolwich you know it's uh I'm not going to speak bad about my area or down down talk anyone from there it was you know but it was uh what I will say is it was a it was a tough area you know none of us had a lot as kids you know I'm a product of the early 70s um Council Estates um yeah I mean you know your textbook basically inner city kid uh growing up in the 70s we didn't have a lot um my father was uh uh sadly an alcoholic and died while he was quite young how old was he uh my dad was only 52 when he died and how old are you so uh I was in my mid-20s that died like oh 24 25 I had a very fractured relationship with my dad because of that I don't play the blame game I don't want to blame anyone or my circumstances because you know it doesn't matter where you come from you know you we make our own choices okay we're products of our environment to a degree but I don't like to play the blame game because I've seen you know people come from the same places I did and some went on to do well I was just one of them people that didn't you know I had a lot of difficulties as a child and especially didn't know how to express myself I'm a great believer if uh I can't tell you how I feel I'll show you and I didn't have the emotional intelligence as a young man to say how I felt and and I think when I was very young 11 12 I sort of I would say I was raised on the streets the only place I felt any sort of affiliation was with the other kids on the estate Who had who were like similar position to me I just didn't have fathers a lot of us didn't have things you know we didn't have bikes or anything or other things that a lot of kids have and I don't think we had the the love or nurture you know so I I think we sort of raised ourselves so we were quite feral really is it's quite fair right did you have a good relationship with your mum even though you did you did I did well my mum my mum was a Irish immigrant she came here from Ireland when she was 16 years old she left Ireland when she was 16 so she came to this strange country and she had no family around though or anything it must have been so difficult for my mum she's done the best she could again I would never blame my mum for the way I turned out you know my mum done the best she could but it was hard it was hard I mean kids can be so cruel and and when I was young and I didn't have the nice clothes or the things other kid you know I did experience bullying you know I used to have uh big ears I wasn't always like this supermodel man I I had biggies yeah yeah yeah and kids used to call me biggies or FA Cup or you look like a taxi and I used to try and shake it off but it really uh it really uh and and I felt very inferior to have a kid you know I felt skinny and weak you know I wasn't this big strong kid or this big fire kid you know all that stuff come later in life but uh as a young kid I I just felt I had no place you know you know you you you you start to Lose Yourself at a young age and you do things to become accepted and in amongst all that I make the bad decision at some point to start going down the wrong road and was that going down the wrong road to earn money to get the things that you wanted the nice things in life yes and no I would say you know the progression for me was quite textbook it was like your you do things to be accepted by the older kids that you're scared of if the truth be known looking back with an adult ed at the time as a child you don't I'm not one of these kids at a young age that could tell you how I felt I couldn't but I knew there was bigger older kids on the estate and you looked up to them and you respected them and uh if you felt peer pressure to do something or behave in a certain way then that's what you did irregardless of the consequences you sort of lose your morality as it were and you do crazy things vandalism acting out the the stuff that a lot of kids do I mean even kids that didn't go on to Live the Life I Lived you know and was that was that kind of the start for you where was the start where you were earning money or you were or you were you you knew you were into petty crime what sort of age group was that probably I would say realistically where I made the real choice to get into sort of criminality in crime is I was a dad at 16. were you I was at dad at 16 you know and that was like you know I love my son to bits you know but at 16 years old I couldn't even look after myself and all of a sudden I've got a child and I'm desperately trying to be a father and provide because no one provided for me as a kid in in the material sense or in the so I desperately wanted to try so I did find myself getting into crime you could say it's easy to say now this is not the blame game you could say well most kids of that age could why didn't you go to college why didn't you why didn't you um get a job or whatever I did I tried you know I tried to work when I left school and all that it was difficult times it was factors Britain when I left school we was in the depths of recession there was very few places at colleges a university and things like that if you came from where we you just didn't yeah you know and and I say this in my book I speak graphically about it I'll give it a bit of a social sociological narrative as it were um the way they invested in our future was they built belmarsh prison which was on our doorstep and the police at the time we had something what was called the SPG which was the special Patrol group they used to come on to our Estates we were all tied with the same brush you know there was no racism or anything like that we was there was black kids white kids and we was all mixed together in in the police's eyes at the time we were all scum and they said we will all be in that jail soon and that's exactly what happened so they were drilling into your minds kind of very much so and it was you know whether you've done things or didn't do things it didn't matter you still get the blame you got the blame but you were tired with that brush it was really really hard and if you came from my estate and you went to try and get jobs because we can only get local jobs we didn't drive we didn't have the money to travel to London and places like that you'd go oh if they knew you were from like Woolwich common or something you were immediately viewed with distrust and dis and suspicion so that it was stacked against us and I say this if an adult ed again at the time you you don't realize how many barriers there is to overcome they are overcomeable but at the time as a young man you know I was just lost you know completely lost where were you living with a with us as a 16 year old with a kid well at 16 my partner was she was a year older than me and and these were in the days where you could get a flat quite easy before the the housing crisis of today and and she had her own little Council flat and I ended up moving with her when I was just over 16 years old I mean I was I left home as quick as I could when I was 16. I was just wanted wanted out and you know and uh yeah I moved in with her and that was in the heart of the estate the heart of the sort of Badlands as it were my flat become quite an epicenter for all Eve a lot and before you know it is your and the police at the time really did Target me because they saw me as being yeah very much at the epicenter of everything that was going on and what I really was not not to do that not to leave the grade yes degree they said yeah but did it contribute to pushing me into more harder and organized crime most definitely because as time went on I I climbed the the uh the scale in terms of the underworld and I think a lot of that happened from ending up in such hard prison environments at a young age you know I was in belmarsh prison when I was 19 years old you're not supposed to be there till you're 21. yeah you know they put me in Belmont when I was 19 because I was from that area had a bit of a name yeah they'd done something what was called starred up but they didn't do it it wasn't called startup then they just basically put me in Belmont at 19 years old did they give a reason to them it was just it was more convenient yeah it was more convenient was it more convenient were you a nuisance were they think like you're looking back now as an adult looking back you're thinking he's a proper nuisance we need to get him off the estate and put him into belmarsh yes and no but by this sort of age I had become a bit of a rebel and I did often react badly when I got arrested I'm not proud to say it but I did used to I fought with them and whatever else and uh yeah but that was that was in some senses to defend myself here that was in some senses retaliation to the brutality that we often encountered at the hands of the police now uh I I say this I don't hate the police I respect the police I have a healthy respect for the police we need the place nothing against them to them a reformed character I live a law abiding life I think they do a very difficult job and it's even harder in these times but I mean back in that era I mean we're talking about the the late 80s early 90s they work it was the police were quite brutal you know they they used to fit us up they used to do uh uh you had this thing what we call verbal when you do you do a statement you'd never sign it because they had signed it for you and they'd write things and you'd end up going to call and you've admitted this in a minute I never said that I said I never said so were there no recordings in CCTV nothing back then before the days so they could write what they want get you to sign even if you didn't sign it they'll sign it on your behalf they had many many little tricks they used to do so you know like for example we used to steal cars again I'm not proud of it but we used to use like a screwdriver a scaffold pole when they had arrested they'd put it in your hand for the print I mean your fingerprints are going to be on it you know yeah it's against you yeah it's against you and when you go to court you'd end up having quite a few charges some you did some you didn't take it rough with a smooth but there was a lot of people from my era you know I can't you know I can't complain you know I lived that life but there was kids from my area that didn't need to go through what they went through and some of them are sadly dead today because they wanted to have drug problems and die from overdose and everything and it's all a vicious cycle um and they got arrested for things and put away and convicted for things that they hadn't even [ __ ] done it was just let's clear it up yeah and then they went for a phase in the early 90s the police they they'd arrest you say you got arrested for uh one robbery a robbery give an example of robbery an armed robbery okay because I became you know I became a prolific arm robber was that your next step to become an armed robber well what sort of age were you when you first did your first time well first time rugby I was 19 20 years of age 1920 yeah and that was um we had a spay here from our area see the older generation from my area right from from Woolwich to a place called burmancy which is it is he's got woolage areas that little strip there they call it Bandit country it's part of South London where all the armed robbers really did come from and we used to look up to them people the people who were robbing the security Vans and everything else because that that's what was going on and I knew quite a few of them characters they were like the old a lot of us and um where you wanted to be them but we weren't we were just Reckless kids game and we'd go and do these stupid [ __ ] robberies one minute it'd be you know we had no regard for victims or anything like that and I looked back here and I am one of these people I do have a lot of remorse and regret because I I've done some terrible things in that in my quest to be accepted or be a name or to earn money or whichever way you look at it but um yeah we looked up to them people we wanted to be them people but then we had a culmination of uh shootings in our area Place shooting arm robbers is that right is that what that was then that was the thing the police were doing then what happened to calm everything down so well to bring the armed robbery right there because there were so many people running men doing crazy things that what they said at the time I think the Home Secretary Thomas Douglas heard they'll never admit it but it was a shoot to kill policy the execution Squad we called them pt-17 they were like a division of so19 flying Squad and what happened is uh Two Fellas that we knew from our estate both got shot dead Robin in security van and when my friend was turned to run to the getaway vehicle they shot him in the back you know he survived luckily but that tells you there did they need to shoot him when he was running away and then a few weeks later they shot uh another fellow Robin um uh B jams down in down in Woolwich in our state now that brought the armed robbery rate down and that made us think twice and from that sort of moment we did become a little bit more organized and rather than robbing on our own doorstep we tended to go out and and do things out uh so would you your first robbery do you remember it I do was it sort of shotgun oh no it was a it was a replica firearm I think it was like a gap gun or something but no one stops to ask you yeah today and if there's and if there's two or three of you and you run in somewhere and you're threatening enough you know they would uh comply and sometimes they won't you know sometimes people are very brave you know fair play to them but I would never say big brother and being 19 you're still young still a kid how long do you do in belmarsh well the first hit the first time I was in belmarsh I think I was there for about six or seven months it wasn't a long period but six or seven months is a long time in in in in that sort of prison you know and how did you feel when you first went in there you said you had to be 21 you were in there at 19. was it like a was there a bit of you like that you knew on the streets that your mates knew you were in there yes they've been drilled in your head all these years you're gonna go to Belmar if you've got a belmarsh you're going to be a criminal was there a part of that going on by this time I'd already spent quite a bit of time as a young man in young offenders institution so I don't my what we called our Stripes like you'd already done a bit of birds and you sort of half knew what to expect but when you go into them environment and you're a young man you know it's like Gladiator school we used to call it you learn how to fight and defend yourself or whatever else so when you go into them sort of environments you learn to carry yourself which is a difference you either sink or swim and I was very fortunate because I'd had sort of like the the upbringing on the street and the pedigree of knowing sort of the caliber of people that I did know so when you go into them places you sort of know people already or you know their brother their cousin so you get pulled into people and in the criminal world you you are used and abused and you use and abuse but you're not aware of it at the time because we had certain skills When We Were Young nicking cars high performance motorbikes things like that this is where I first started to get a little bit organized some of the more organized robbery firms used to get us to Nick a car or make a motorbike and leave it in a certain place to get away we knew what it was for but we would never we could never divulge anything we kept our mouth shut the relationship we had the police you would never speak to the police and I would and I would never have cooperated with him in any shape or form so we were trusted to do things like that and looked after for doing it yeah yeah yeah and how many how many armed robberies do you reckon you've done before before you moved into the next step of the criminality world well I wouldn't like to say I've been arrested I've been convicted of firearms twice I've been convicted for two armor a breeze and one attempted armed robbery um but I would say enough to say I was prolific at the time you know from the ages of perhaps 19 to 27 I I've done quite a lot enough for the police to tell me they were going to show me right okay and they meant it yeah was there ever a time when you when you were planning robbery you think I'm gonna do four this week on do one every month which wasn't when it was any game plan or was it just like you know what I'm gonna fancy it today so sometimes sometimes we're organized and sometimes you're opportunist there was a lot that went on in my criminality I you know I developed a drug problem at a young age I was a cocaine and whatever probably from about the age of 2021 we we started sniffing Coke and whatever it was because remember we were coming out of the acid house here wouldn't we there was still a lot of cash in society there was still a lot of I mean today armed robberies something that's just it's gone it's it's a redundant crime and we were on the tail end of it you know to say some in some sense it's dinosaurs but back then you could get Nick for a robbery and you could get four or five year for robbing a post office now if you rob a post office you'll get 18 years 20 years so the world of sentences sort of killed it anyway but did you not ever have the fear of going off I get caught today I want to get a five like the fear of getting shot yeah that was the biggest every job I went on after they went through that phase of of shooting and they told us they were going to show us you know and we started to notice uh at this time of year you just had to beat Bobby's I used to have the the Bubbies used to have yeah that's right yeah yeah they started to have the flat caps and they used to come onto our estate in in arvs which is like armed response vehicles and you know they were armed in there and then Park up at the estate one one one one particular incidence uh I was in a snooker or win bexleyheath like we used to go there sometimes after we'd been out of the night with and they was watching us and they knew we was up soon and I came out and there was four arvs waiting for me to arrest me for a suspicion of something and they was just getting armed up ready to and it was late at night and I walked out and started and they've gone and they've sort of Arrested me before they had a chance but I I often wonder if they had got sort of a seed sort of situation and said right come out with your hands up and all that would they have shot me there'd be no Witnesses or anything you know and they told me they were going to shoot me you know I mean these robberies was it just Banks and secured any other types Jewelers uh Bureau the changes um I got convicted of a post office one post a main post office that um that I robbed um uh attempting probably on another post office it was I would like to say in our world in my world at that time and I don't see any of this to give it the big I am you know I regret my past but it was easy targets you know it's it's it's horrific to say but crime criminality you know it creates [ __ ] victims you know and and but you don't think at the time and we never thought so if we could run in a in a in a post office and you've got like a couple of Bank uh post office staff in there and if you know they're not going to put up a fire but you've got no regard for the for the trauma and that you cause them people you know one of my friends I mean we it's an art robbery it's sort of like you we homed our skill and you can be more menacing by being calm and collected than what you can ever be in Captain Caveman yeah okay when people run in as Captain Caveman stuff it's very amateur but we could be quite uh professional and and with the notes we used to write a note literally sometimes not even ever have a weapon write a demand gnome hand it under the counter and just let him read it and see and read the action here so nine times out of ten they'll put the money from the draw into the into the bag and Chuck it under because they're they're told to do that don't put up a fight especially if there's a customer in the bank yeah now we know that the way that what they was uh all good to do is if there's no customer in the bank you can hit the button and it sends the the protective screens up with us but if there's a customer in the bank they must comply because they're putting that customer at risk so we know these these so we had no regard for them the poor victims or whatever else and um one particular rubber I know he was so violent on robberies like he he used to go in and he would hit the screen and smash the screen everything he he traumatized by himself yeah you know I've read the uh the witness uh be um what they called the um you know when someone reads out that in in court the vict the victim yeah and I've read it and and this particular was a woman behind the camera at a time when he robbed it and this wasn't one that I was on and she she actually soiled herself she was that terrified sure and you know that that's that's it's this big but at the time when you're doing it you had no regard whatsoever you're thinking I'm going in there to get a pound note it's all a game yeah especially when you're young and everyone else around you is doing it I hate to say it for us it was like the norm and I think looking back with hindsight it was our way of lashing out at society that we felt we didn't belong in that we felt I mean I felt victimized as a young man I felt like there was no opportunity for me there was you know there was no Banker mum and dad there was no one giving me guidance or support you know even um as a young man I didn't get the opportunities that a lot of other people got they were they used to say um you get a bit of community service or a bit of probation and they might help and guide you or whatever else I never got none of that for me it was just prison prison because you were labeled and tired like I say when we went to a court a Woolwich magistrate school if you came from Woolwich common and the police told the judge because everything goes on behind the scenes Uncle as you know it's it all seems to be lovely and transparent and the scales of Justice seems it don't believe that [ __ ] for one second they know what they're going to give you beforehand the police tell the judge beforehand what they suspect you of and whatever else and what and so they just lock us up with no regard for what damage that would have on us in the long term what what it would do in terms of crime prevention it didn't it just made us [ __ ] harder and this is why I think I'm quite insightful now about young people and what they go through and whatever else but I think looking back I wish somebody had sat me down as a young man I wish someone had sat me down do you reckon that comes back to not having that fatherly figure as a Young Man yes but I do feel 100 but like I said I don't want to play the bang game I think Society I think it was it was dare I say I think it was quite engineered that way it's almost in the cities in in uh in that era don't forget crime is an industry a lot of people are employed off the back you know Security Services all the security jobs all the Civil stuff everything that everything all the it's a [ __ ] industry if you take all of crime out of society now I don't want to sound like this all seeing ISO educated but it's uh what did he say Karl Marx said if you want to truly judge a society look no further than his prisons and the one thing I can tell you from having spent time in 31 different prisons including being a category a prisoner and a Maximum Security Prison in in a special care and control unit because that's where I ended up yeah you know I can tell you I've met some of the greatest Minds in jail and people that perhaps if weren't here whose circumstances being just a little bit different maybe they'd have gone on to be top entrepreneurs or something big fantastic people in society but then on the flip side I'm also privileged enough because I'm involved quite actively involved in reform work you know I've been blessed that I go into schools and give talks and I've gone into colleges and universities and whatever else that I've actually met lots of ex-cons that are actually doing fantastic in society and great uh greatly contributing you know including myself you know I've you know I'm a successful businessman today I own a scaffold company I employ people I pay my tax I don't break the law took me a long time to get there but I'm one of them people and just go back to the robberies I'm fascinated going back to the robberies there did you ever get caught on the job by the place uh I've had two two very near misses in one one that I I they knew it was ours they knew it was ours and we got Chase from a place called um Royal Tunbridge Wells and we got we got Chase in the car but because we were driving like absolute [ __ ] maniacs the police had no choice but to hold for back off on us and and what actually happened is we we crashed the car uh just off the M25 I crashed the car I can talk about this now this is old history I've never been convicted of it is I crashed the car and we me and my friend actually managed to run away and get away and I was hiding in a bush and they knew we were somewhere and they let the police dogs go and a police dog came up to the bush and it came in poked his nose in and I went [ __ ] off and it [ __ ] up okay if ever there was a I love animals but I love that one I love that one I told him to [ __ ] off and he [ __ ] off yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so good luck so when you've got when you've got when you've got the the robberies you said you did it from sort of 19 to 27 a lot easier back there there's no CC TV there was a you know just a lot easier everything was a lot easier back then police relied on on informants of grass it's like they'd do today and I mean the police no they're not [ __ ] stupid the police know they they if you're active criminally you know they know your [ __ ] act if you know when we're on the estate we're not working and when we did have a touch they'd know you've had a touch because you'd all be out on the piss in the park they want to be like giving it the Charlie big potatoes because we did yeah they're not [ __ ] stupid you know they know that you're active where are you getting your money from if you're signing on you're getting whatever a week and you live in that lifestyle do you remember do you remember the biggest hit you ever had during a robbery yeah how much are you talking half a million pounds you're joking me yeah no I don't have a million it weren't all in money I'd be lying and I can speak about this because I got convicted of it this is the one I got committed to a main post office a lot of it was in um stems we should take everything back then because you could get remember the days when you could pay all your electric bills and everything with the phone stamps or whatever we used to get all the stamps all the electric bill stamps and everything in it that gave us sort of like a bit of a Robin Hood because everyone on our estate could [ __ ] affair because we'd get the books and we'd we'd we'd get the stamps and what happened is all they used to do is when they used to get the stamps come in someone pays their bill they said put a pen Mark through them and just put them in a bag and there'd be thousands of thousands of them okay now the face value of them would be what thousands yeah all we used to do is get brake fluid wipe the pen mark and it would get rid of the pen Mark that'd be good as new again and we'd resell them and people go back in and pay their bills and pay your phone bills your electric bills everything I mean we had money with tax this everything yeah yeah would you go behind the counter to do that is it like you see in the film banging everything in bags I did on that particular one the way it used to work with post offices back then they didn't used to be alarmed and people didn't know that right nope didn't used to be alarmed what they had was what's called a trembler the only part of the post office that was alarmed was the safe can you not foam that in that's how I got arrested for a while I'll tell you what happened the the they had a trembler on them and this because the in the uh the 60s and 70s you had the safe blowers didn't you know people just blow the safest open and cut them well it was still tail end of that era so they had technology hadn't caught up so we knew we could go in and Rob and basically they had no alarms you could even break in of a night time which we'd done to a few we'd break in overnight and cut cut into the safe some things we've done that you know it's uh the only part that was alarmed was that yeah it was only after sort of a lot of burglaries we've done and some of the burglaries we've done a post office high value burglaries when you think not everything was in the safe tax disks all this sort of stuff which back then you didn't have all the ampr cameras that the police have got now I could sell you a stolen Texas and stand there and put it in the window and as far as you're concerned you can text yeah you know and what did you get for that I got five year nine months for that did you and where and did you did what you did three years of that of three years that was the first time I met uh my uh Charlie Bronson Charlie with Charlie Brunson I've been being banged up with him twice that's the first time I met him because I was at least release him that's what I'll say he's no threat to anyone I mean the depressed sensationalize Charlie you know what he's a very decent man and a very very funny very intelligent you know and if he gets released he's not going to plug the Army Strong Boy as well oh phenomenally strong but I was in like I say this is I I was a bit of a fool in the prison system side I was a bit no I would say I was one of these super hard prisoners but I was just a [ __ ] pest like I always were you game for everything yeah two games okay and I liked winding them up and and anyway on the screws yeah it was my first escape attempt really what happened denied there and I was going on production I was serving for that one and I was up at the same time for a conspiracy to rob a post office in Dartford where we got Nick foam in the Bell box with what would happen is we foamed the belt box uh cab driver saw two of us doing it he's found the place I got nicked a mile away from the same but my two friends got arrested near the scene and because they put us all together we're all next anyway I'm up for conspiracy on that whilst whilst already while I was already serving and uh my plan was to escape from court and I thought if I make a weapon up I could Escape anyway cut a long story so you're in you're in the court docks I was going to escape yeah from the cool dog from Maidstone yeah yeah but I was in high down prison in Surrey at the time which is a cat B prison it's a secure prison so you're not getting out of there and anyway I've made this knife up and I was really friendly with uh another prisoner at the time called Davey Goddard lovely fella he's the first man to escape from Wandsworth prison since Ronnie Biggs is that right yeah what happened is they was doing some works on the yard he managed to scale the fence like a little ferret he stood on top of the fence because I was really friendly with him they used to watch us really Watchers and it was a silly move really they've spun myself one day fam this bloody knife next thing you know is I'm I'm down the segregation that's the first time I met Charlie because they thought oh it could be an escape attempt they've put me Dave Goddard on the same because if you're a cat a or an email which is like an escape risk they put you in the seg but on the exercise yard side so that if you was to get out yourself you'd still be enclosing the excise yard so okay Charlie Bronson was down there as a category eight prisoner and there was myself and Dave Goddard now but Dave was already an e-man now I'm an e-man in in yellow stripes so all three of us are in a row together and that was when I first got to know Charlie and got to speak to Charlie what's the difference between normal cells and seg well segregation you're basically locked up 24 hours a day yeah you'd be like you get out for like half hour exercise they may or may not let you out for a shower the the the screws tend to be a lot harder and he died down at the time in 95 it hadn't been opened long and a lot of prison officers had come there from Wandsworth and Wandsworth I don't care what anyone says oh not bad now but back then Wandsworth was a [ __ ] odd prison it was like the flagship of the POA which is a prison Officers Association a lot of the prison officers there are all ex-military um [ __ ] odd bastards you know they were odd bosses and quite brutal they're in scraps I've done the two and I would say they're equally as [ __ ] hard but one's worth notoriously odd so the the prison officers in the segregation unit they usually put the artist of the art there because you've got people that are in that segregation for I mean there's a lot of people like Charlie Bronson you hear about Charlie Bronson a lot but there's a lot of dangerous people in segregation people that have to be separated from other prisons because they're [ __ ] violent yeah whatever reason so yeah when I was in that segregation by virtue of people like Charlie and that being down how long were you in there for how long was segregation for obviously in that segregation for well it must have been two or three months I can't remember I've done a lot of segregation so two or three months of 23 and a half hours stuck in yourself I've done worse than that you know because what's worse than that well eventually when I did Escape hold on let's go I want to go back to the call we missed that bit you were in the call yeah basically and you tried to escape or you did Escape well no that time I never but I did a few years later um yeah absolutely let's go to let's go to the first attempt escaping well I didn't get as far as the Escape because they when they spun my cell and they found because back then you didn't go with um nowadays it's private security companies take you to court and whatever else back then you went with prison officers and my my sort of uh crazy mind at the time I thought if I make a knife yeah you know I can out of well I actually made it out of plastic and a piece of metal and filed it down on the wall so it was like you know you can I've seen some horrific weapons in jail and some horrific stabbings in my time but the I made it I wouldn't have stabbed any of them but I would have threatened one of them to just try and run jump the dog run off and I was young fear at the time you know I could probably run further than I probably would make it to that door now but back then I was like you know you've got a lot of fighting you know you just want to get out I mean it's it that was my mentality back then it was like your cult you're arrested but you won't you you'll never take me alive are you constantly thinking how I could Escape all the time all the time so you did you got a six or five nine over here roughly you did three years yeah when you come out you're like I'm gonna go in the straighter now do you know what when I came out I wanted to go straight you know I don't you know I don't you know you know I might shoot my son and I had my my daughter Leanne how old is your son at this point oh he must have been five about five or six buddies she's missed his I missed the pivot all years important years you know but that was there was a lot to that I mean I'd split up with his mum prior to sort of you know being away and whatever else but I I wanted to go straight and I wanted to I wanted to go college and do things like that but I couldn't support myself you know I'm not being funny you know you back then and even now you were discharged from prison with like 40 quid in your pocket and there you go build a new life you'd often come out homeless jobless so it's literally open the open the open the doors of prison off you go see it later no one's waiting for you there's no kick you out and off you go there was very little rehabilitation in prison back then and what the prison officers were produced Society are is it was like what a funny joke to him is uh next time you come back bring a friend [Laughter] the country's grilling into your head from a young age isn't it yeah but I don't want to again I don't wanna as an adult I don't want to paint this bare pigeon prison officers yeah you know I met some [ __ ] decent months over the years really good people they're really for the job and they just wanna they wanna try and help people with us but the card you know the governments and and the ministry of justice and the Army sectors [ __ ] on them as much as they [ __ ] on prisoners you know and and um their hands are tied you know what's it like in prison is it ripe is it drugs Rife pending alcohol Rife depends on the prison okay you know I'll tell you a story about maximum security prisons you know category a prisons because I ended up in in maximum security prisons there's only five in the country and they're called the dispersal prisons you've got white more full Saturn Franklin long Latin uh Wakefield which is Monster mentioned they call it that's where they keep all the all any of those five you're in there wakefield's where they keep the reptiles that's where all the really bad sex offenders are but in their mother jails and most of them are straight cons they might have a wing with that yeah but most of strike considers high-risk prisoners whatever else which I became regrettably but in them jails you tend to get a lot of alcohol and it's it's home brewing by virtue of the prisoners they've got there in the sentences they're doing I mean 30 wrecks and 25 years and 28 years and 35 years whole life tariffs there's a lot of prisoners they've got nothing to lose so the prison officers tend to let you have a drink as long as you're not a nuisance to it as long as you're not a nuisance and you behave and if you [ __ ] kick off or start being violence towards them then they send the search teams in turn it into a desert that's their control message although they'll never admit yeah it goes on and that will just spread before the inmates get older than me why are you doing that you've ruined it for us all reasons only work with turn against them exactly prisons only work within make cooperation if ever you may said [ __ ] you the prisons would be mad at us wouldn't they and are they mad houses some prisons are local prisons tend to be because you've got a lot of short-term there's a lot of young priests as well it tends to be the younger prisoners that make it hostile whether it's the older prisoners just really want to get on with their sentence and get out of them so when you've come out this time is all the bank robbery stopped now if you is another is another part of you you jumped into now thinking well I need to run a pound I'm going into this now was it drugs was it no I went into to to organize crime I ended up in in the the late 90s uh from people I'd met in prison I ended up going into the smuggling world you know and I was smuggling drugs from Spain what sort of France cannabis mainly but we did smuggle Coke we did smuggle bees we smuggled and fetamines we we've done all that stuff and it culminated in me getting arrested uh in the end for people smoke memory you know people smuggling I was one of the first people in this country to be arrested for smuggling people into the UK tell me he's from Eastern Europe people smuggling yeah how did that work well you see we was involved with some some big gangs on the continent and these were these were rations from the Breakaway States uh some of them from Belarus Ukraine places like that and and this was before the open borders yeah so what they were trying to do is get people into the UK to preempt it to sort of like jump the queue as it were or whatever decent people I'm not saying could say they were all criminals and smuggling in but I got involved with them people when we was we was uh smuggling drugs or whatever else and I was using abuse I don't want to give it the big I am I was like the main organ I wasn't I wasn't I played a pivotal role but when I was arrested for it because I refuse to copyright with the the police and customs and in the poll it was a big operation when I got arrested I got arrested in France um how did you get arrested did they find you did they find you a load of people how did it work how does people smuggling work we got a I got arrested because of uh an observation that the firm that we were working with were actually under observation on the continent yeah I believe the security services like Mi 5 MI6 and and I can say that in our Vine so the reason why I can say that is because when I was actually arrested we tried to get the covert surveillance material and they'd done something which was called the pii one of the first cases where they've done it which is public immunity something other where they can withhold evidence because it can compromise an ongoing investigation so they or it can compromise a grass or something like that so they withhold evidence so basically material that should be available to the defense should I wish to plead not guilty it's not available to us because they're allowed to withhold it legally which is a bit corrupt and I was actually kidnapped by British Customs you know this sounds you were kidnapped by British Customs you know oh I said while you're in France yeah I was arrested in France I'd committed no offense in Great Britain technically my my offense has been committed in France I should be arrested tried sentenced in France over there okay what happened is uh because it was this new threat to the borders where were people smuggling and whatever else and they they sent British Customs out to France under the guise of check-in to make sure I was fit to be interviewed by the French and fit to be detained like come to check my welfare and they said what we're going to do is we're going to drive you to a hospital in Calais and make sure that you're Fit and Well and I said okay so I willingly said I think this is protocol I have to do it so I can't refuse so I had to get in the car with a British Customs go in the car of them they drove me to a place called Coquel which is a British control Zone in France and once I was there they said you're now in British territory so basically they they brought me back to the UK wow what sentence you get for that I got 10 years for that oh my God and another three years for escaping because this is when I escaped yeah what happened it should be a movie on this there probably is going to be a Netflix movie in it I'd imagine yeah I know there is talks well I basically escaped because I um I ended up taking two prison officers hostage in court so hold on hold on I want to go but I want to go back when were you the Britain's Most Wanted Man after I escaped from oh again so okay we've got enough yeah after I escape this side so you've got a 10. well this is before I got sentenced I escaped what happened is British Customs brought me back to the UK yes I was immediately reminded in Castle now the reason they brought me back to the UK is because they wanted me to cooperate I know they did yeah and they knew if I was in a French prison or something like that the chances on them getting because these were major organizers and they said to me so if you don't cooperate as far as we can search that's why I got 10 years because I refused point blank to cooperate you know so they've done me as being the ring leader so when you're not cooperating there are sitting there in a room ask you loads of questions you're just okay no comments oh immediately they wanted to make my life hard but this is what this is I'll tell you the story now why it became very odd yeah I decided that's it bollocks I'm going to escape you know where were you what prison uh they moved they put me in Canterbury prison you know I was at Folkston Court which is a high security call yeah um the reason I say that it's not very go off it's a high security call because if you're arrested at the Docks uh Dover folkestone anywhere like that you know they get some major players arrested there big Parcels of drugs explosives guns whatever so when you go to court you're not what's called a category a facility uh cult to prevent Escape so I knew I wasn't going to be able to just jump the dock or run out so when I went to Canterbury prison I was there on remote for two weeks and I knew I was going to appear again at Folkston call so I hatched this plot I said right I know how I'm going to escape and what I actually done uh I'll tell you the full story but I don't want to sound like a glamorous glorifying I guess because I'm not it's it was not nice what I've done I got a simple big paper pen I put a paper clip in the end and I filled it up with blackcurrant Gem and it looked like a hypodermic syringe so when I left um prison that morning I'm strip searched very easy to conceal I'll just edit it sort of Denmark then the backing between the ass cheeks if you like and when I got to call when they took me up into the dark the two prison officers that took me up I I grabbed one of them held it to his neck forced the other one to open the door and and Escape From The Cult and managed to get away you're joking when I was arrested I was done for initially 23 false imprisonments including the judge but they included the judgment because I technically I'd I'd held everyone yeah everyone must just had to fear and then when you got out of when that last door opened were you just on your toes literally on the run now I'm not going to give it the large and say I had this uh big pot of money off went down to Spain to be with all the big gangsters I wasn't a gangster you know I thought I was you know I basically got out and now I've just got to survive on my wits which I've done many which coming from the streets you survive on your way so I've jumped a few Gardens need to top off a washing line so I've changed my identity run down to the beach I didn't even know where the [ __ ] I was I'm even folks and I've run down the beach I I managed to be amongst people because they there was a helicopter up looking for me in no time you know it was a helicopter flying around so I've uh I've saw a girl when she was with her baby where else I managed to sit down and have a little chat with her so anyone that I just look like someone with it you know on a steak down there for a few hours and then I literally bunked a train home to Woolwich and when I got back to Woolwich and I'm a home [ __ ] area I wouldn't be that hard to find yeah and what I did don't know I nicked a pair of glasses out of Specsavers because because it works for Clark Kent so you know it has to be disguised but yeah I got back to a flat in Woolwich I said it's on the book it says sitting in someone's saying it it comes up on the news do not approach this man or whatever else it wasn't a nice feeling and uh you know I said to my enough just escaped and he's like yeah of course you have your shut up you know everyone thinks somebody come up on the news and I was over older because it was it was quite an extreme method I'd used to escape it was the first time someone had actually used a hypodermic syringe in their eyes with jam and well and but they didn't they didn't have a clue they didn't know that wow at this time this is like the this is 2000 this was it could be AIDS could be anything couldn't it yeah so when I was eventually caught and arrested so how long how long were you on when you saw yourself on the Telly obviously your art must have dropped wasn't nice no it wasn't me how were your family then were you in contact with your family then my family were affected how yeah I was going to say how affected were your family but then they must have seen it on BBC Britain's Most Wanted Man Is On The Run they're probably saying Don't Go Near him your family are thinking oh do not approach I don't know I've got a History of Violence what did you do what did you do from that from there you went back to Woolwich and then you must went back to Woolwich how long are you on the run for uh about four or five months it must have been yeah they were looking for you for four or five months um armed police went through my mum's house door and different different people's houses looking for me and yeah lots of different different um yeah it wasn't nice it wasn't a nice experience you know what were you doing every day surviving that four or five months were you going up north for you in both houses or I had a bit of help you know I wasn't living very far from Woolwich you know I didn't have this big bag of money or whatever else I was I I uh a certain someone from my area was quite a face he got me a little flat that I could stay in that belonged to someone he knew over in uh lewisham which was just two minute two miles from where I grew up so I was staying in this flat and I was basically coming out of a night time surviving in my waist I knew it was only a matter of time before I got caught and I was very very fortunate that I wasn't caught doing another bit of work and I'll and I'll be honest here in that period I didn't okay you know I I you know it was on me so I don't do a rugby I knew I was [ __ ] I knew I was in a lot of trouble this was sort of this experience and I think I was hitting a place in my life where you know I was near where I was sort of near that place where I thought you know I want [ __ ] change I don't want this [ __ ] life anymore this is I mean a lot of [ __ ] trouble I've got kids so it's leading nowhere and I was starting to I say this conscience is a fierce pursuer it escapes no man yeah and I was I was not this psychopath or anything like that you know I had a drug problem by this time I was how old are you at this point yeah well no um yeah I was coming up to I was 29 30 when I got arrested for that when yeah 29 30 I'm just just shy of 50 now so we're going back 20 years so where did they where did they catch you well they eventually did you ever think about a game I'm just playing myself in it's just too stressful or not everything went very much shall I go out with a bang yeah you know because you think like that what did you think I take my own life no I would take my own life but I should I just go out on a [ __ ] mad Kamikaze and if the police around me just go [ __ ] is what it is death by Suicide and a lot of criminals have gone that way you know death by Suicide with police and and I particularly no one one particular fella who actually did pointed a gun at a place knowing they're shooting you know because it's you sort of get to that place when you've exhausted all avenues and you feel that you've got to that place yeah I'd live the fast criminal life you know I don't talk bollocks there's things I can never talk about and I progressed very very quickly in the criminal underworld you know I'm I'm you know I'm a well-respected man in in in in not giving it a big Iron but you know it's not many people in London criminally died and in encounters with at some point wherever I met in jail and I was respected in jail and whatever else I'd lived it fast and [ __ ] furious I'd gone from being this frightened kid who'd Nick a Mars bar and be really [ __ ] paranoid of a security guard to go out doing good can basically anything yeah and at the end of my criminality I was probably capable of anything which is sad yeah you scare yourself you're scared of who you've become because you lose the fear of the place you lose the fear of prison because you've been there seen it done it you know I've been to 31 bloody prisons and it sounds bad but I've got candid and when I wrote the autobiography I've been to 31 different prisons and prisons Never Scared me and it's it's for you at a place where the only person who really scares you is yourself because you you know everyone's mortal no one is more dangerous than the next man or whatever and you know it's like you know you get a big massive email a lot of people do that because they're scared and feared the biggest the biggest it's not the size of the man in the fight it's the fight in the man and and and I was by this time I was [ __ ] wild how much how much did all this how much did cocaine play a part and you're being wild you reckon you fueled me I think it speeds you up it's like you you you you know I was always blessed I've always been quite intelligent you know I'm not stupid a lot of emotionally a [ __ ] [ __ ] I was but it in electorally I was always quite intelligent very much a thinker and uh I don't think you've done me any favors and later in life I was diagnosed as suffering from a condition where they said I was bipolar because of you know I could get quiet anxious I used to get anxious a lot or get bit go a bit psychotic not where I'd lose touching with reality but just where I'd do things and afterwards think why the [ __ ] did I do that or I'd have no no sort of defense against my own behavior as it were you know very impulsive and whatever and I think that's what cocaine done it was fueling that but uh were you using every day towards the end of my criminality I was yeah you know I've been clean now for a number of years I don't use any drugs I don't even drink alcohol I don't nothing I don't take the risk but yeah I want to roll back to those four or five months on the Run where where did you get caught well I ended up getting caught in in Woolwich um in your hometown in my hometown you went back again yeah yeah you know what by the time Mark I did get caught I was almost a relief I bet it was almost a relief you know but um what happened is they they I was in a building with with a friend of mine and I saw a police car go past quite slow and I thought uh I thought a little bit suspicious of it and then literally five minutes I'd come out and there was just a sea of [ __ ] face there to arrest me like they'd obviously known I was going to be there or somebody probably grasp me out they would have done me a favor but cut a long story short then when I was arrested obviously because of the means I'd use to escape immediately I Was Made um uh high security prisoner and I wasn't allowed any human contact I was kept in total segregation photo sacrifice how long uh about nine nine ten months and I want to call because they thought because of the syringes yes yeah the risk of me injecting someone for all they knew I could have had HIV I could be you know and they let me have it you know I was I was it's category do you ever have to wear Chains No not Chains No but uh uh is is something that I write about in my book which I say is really it was one of them moments you know I was a very clingy kid to my mum and very clingy I went to while I was on my mind they I had to go to hospital because I had uh I had an ear operation as a kid then my ears have to be strange because my ears get blocked one of my ears gets blocked and I get a really bad click anyway they've sent me to outside hospital I went with 12 prison officers I had to wear a green and yellow boiler suit with hm prison on the back I was double handcuffed so I had set of big padlock handcuffs like that and handcuffed to a prison officer as well and I had 12 prison officers with me in a in a little waiting room and there was a little boy there with his mum and when he looked at me he went you know he was scared I loved his mum and I looked at him and you know I saw the yeah saw me first didn't you yeah I saw me for us yeah and I really did and that's something that was Stone me for life I looked at him and I thought you know that's this is what my life's become this is it this is the culmination of my best thinking this is where I am in life how long did you get on that sentence I got 10 years of 10. yeah you get a plus three as well for three years for the Escape another three years 13 years and you're bouncing around all prisons all around the UK everywhere I ended up what happened is they uh I was transferred the minute I was sentenced I was sent to long-lot in prison where's that that's in Worcester that's a category a prism with we've got like high risk category prisoners whatever else and I met a lot of the notorious faces that you are not going to mention their names it's not about them but people you read about in the papers whether it's become very friendly with a lot of these people so that was a very a very oppressive very security environment you know all the doors are electronic uh whatever else there's no keys they don't have keys in case you take a prison officer hostage everything's done electronically uh the the wings are full of [ __ ] prison officers it's a really oppressive environment I met prisoners there obviously that first night I got there I walked along and you had to sell cards and it says how long people are doing on the sell cards and it's life life life 30 years life life 25 years just tell me what's life because I hear that life actually isn't life depends on the The Prisoner a lot a life sentence is actually 99 years okay but you get what's called a recommendation on that life sentence because there's varying degrees of murder you know someone who stabs someone in a pub is not as bad as someone who goes out premeditated kills someone or whatever else and you get recommendations the average is probably 15 or 16 years well so if you get a life you could end up doing 15 or 16. potentially but there's no guarantee okay there's no guarantee you you would only get out when you satisfy the parole board that you're fit for releases but there's some people are doing 30 years I met people who are doing whole life sentences they've been told they'll never be released wow Jeremy Bamber and people like that they'll be told they'll never be released I've met four or five years old they'll never be released you know because of their crimes with that horrific you know and you see these people you're on a wing with these people yeah so when you're in them environments you're walking around and you are walking around the wing of [ __ ] Killers people who would kill you like that there's there's plenty of people I've met in prison who who who who would kill you and not think [ __ ] twice about it's a very dangerous environment they make you very hypersensitive they make you paranoid they damage you you get like there's a lot of people who've done um high security Charities have spent years and years in them they come out they're never the same person they suffer from my post traumatic stress they're really thinking environments are you in your own cell or are you sharing yourself all single cells is your category a person or in a high-risk prison everyone so where is there a place where another another prisoner could attack another prisoner at lunch and dinner or yeah there's always a place there's a exercise yard a lot of it happens in the corridors or in the gym because there's times when you're moved the most uh violent time in the most risky time in any prison is first thing in the morning yeah because when people are just woke up they've got the armed boy if they've got beef from the night before they've been stewing on it all night and they try and catch you in the morning or what's called free flow and that's in the morning when prisoners go to work or go to exercise everyone has to leave this cell and go through the corridors or whatever prisoners are clever you know they're very Canyon and whatever they will find their moment they've got nothing when you're in prison you've got nothing but time to think and people plot and plan and they're constantly plotting a plan and and in the dispersals what they say is when it does go off it doesn't go off as often as you would think like violence not as often as you would think apart from The Nutters but when it does it's bad because you don't want on that prisoner going down the segors I was going down and then coming back on the wing because he's going to come and do you again so when it does go off in there I mean I I one of the worst things I saw in the dispersal system I saw a black guy come back from the gym one day holding his stomach and I went I went you're right he was one of that lot from the the Birmingham one of them cruised from up there and I said you're right he went nah and he pulled his arms away like that and literally his stomach was hanging out where somebody had cut him and literally tried to kill him no doubt about that and I've seen murders in prison as well I've been away into prisons where another prison has been killed you know and a lot of services how are you how are you how are you sleeping at night no no no no when you were in there no and all this is going off you're in category a you become foreign to it but you become hardened you become hardened because it's the only way to cope remember I said when I started this interview you learned to sink or swim you sink or swim you can't show any weakness whatsoever you can't and I was very fortunate that I've attracted some of the best cons over the years and I say that for again I'm not giving it the big I am because I'm really not but you know I'm a decent fella I'm stauncher I can make people laugh all that stuff so I've always um at good people around me and at it with good people I don't take liberties with people I've done nothing like that you know I very much into my fitness because I was a boxer in amongst whatever else and and um yeah so I've always had good people around me I tend to avoid the people who I see as a friend I'm smart like that you can clock that straight away oh yeah you do when you've done a lot of prison you can see who's like a bit and you [ __ ] give my wife birth yeah because Prison 80 of prison is just people with [ __ ] drug problems and everything else you've only got like a 20 of prison I would call real hardcore criminal Comics most people in prison don't [ __ ] need to be there but given a bit of guidance or a bit of Rehabilitation they'll go on to live a better life including myself and including some of the people who you might write off and say oh he's a [ __ ] super villain where a lot of these [ __ ] people they they they don't want to be there you know you mentioned a minute ago about prisoners committing suicide yeah I've seen a few have you yeah very sad very sad because a lot of them don't need to be it shouldn't be in that position in the first place and the reason I say this is because I saw the transition and it happened in 95 with Michael Howard you know he was a complete you know he was a complete [ __ ] [ __ ] in in an attempt to win votes he decimated the prison system he slashed the education badges slashed the care badges brought in mandatory drug testing so people would normally have a path and stay calm everyone started taking erroring because it stayed in your system less and he created all the [ __ ] heroin problems complete [ __ ] idiot because all he wanted was the votes and whipped the electric up you know the best way with the conservatives in it is to just whip the electric up with a crime crime stick and it's and but he decimated and what he'd done is where he slash all the badges he slashed mental wealth everything and uh basically prison started to become an overflow for the mental health hospitals people that should be in hospital are now nothing to do with them what do we do they've smashed the window in the eye Street lock them up in a nice security prison they can't cope with that [ __ ] environment go behind their door of a night [ __ ] self-harming the prison officers are not psychiatric nurses they can't deal with that stuff they can't expect them to be looking through your flap every two seconds and basically what what happened is there was a the suicide rates in prison just went up up up up up and they're still going up and the reason they're going up is because in Europe we're the harshest at sentencing but we're also the quickest to lock people up and we we we're very hard on people with um mental illnesses and things like that where there could be viable Alternatives but there's just not the there's not enough resources in society to cope with these people so they just look them up it's sad it's sad so you've done got 13 years yeah you come out after probably six and a half seven yeah nearly eight eight and what age are you then oh now I was 37 years old 38 when I came out 37 30 yeah yeah what was your next move from there would you go straight believe it or not I you know I've moved to Bournemouth and this is an amazing fact I went on to become you know I boxed as a kid when I was at school wherever a box is an amateur and a box of school and and even in amongst my criminal you know I scoped in a gym and still trained up his spine Wheels but I thought you know I want to get back into me boxing and I've started a little Boxing Club in Bournemouth got alongside I started boxing and within a couple of years and I was fighting again unlicensed whatever else you know I won a British Title One license and I had quite a little thing as a yeah it's a boxer and I'd started a scaffold company and I was doing really well you know I was doing really well for quite a few years and then uh yeah then I sort of like I hadn't done enough on myself really but what I will say I know what I will say is uh when I was away because uh this preceded me getting out and doing quite well when I was away doing the long sentence you know I went and done um therapy it's all in the book I went to a therapeutic prison for three and a half years called uh that was in Brendan Underwood that was in Aylesbury and buckinghamshire had a very bad reputation at the time people who say oh it's full of weird I was full of nuts as well but for me when I was serving that sentence in that in in ice security prison you get assessed by psychologists you know and what had happened to me is I'd actually got arrested whilst in jail for two bad section 18s you know I I was a section 18. that's uh gbh with intent okay violent offenses I've gone a bit a bit nuts stayed there they sent me up to uh prison in Staffordshire called Dove gate to do therapy you know they suggested I'd go and do a bit of therapy have a look at my life because I was Keen to change yeah and while I was up there there was two prisoners that was uh we had this little fiddle up there me and my mate because you do what you do in prison to survive we were getting bits and Bobs sent in the post like well we're getting bits of puff and they're sent inside pictures we had a bench screwing reception and as we was getting these parts he was giving us the package before he had gone to the center so we was getting there and we was we was having a because the this particular prisoner up there knew this particular officer on the air it goes on you know and uh so we had a good little fiddle this one prisoner grasped us up and he got him uh I think the prisoners are going to have because obviously we wouldn't say anything but he got him under investigation or whatever kind of long story so I'll come out and I'll sell one therefore I've had enough for these it was too far north you know I'm a Londoner for and there was not a lot of londoners up there I thought I [ __ ] this I've had enough and uh and I was going down for dinner one day and anyway I I had a Honey Jar in my end and I whacked this particular prisoner over the edge with it and uh it came down the side of his head and he collapsed and he had tomato soup in his hand and uh the Tomato soup's gone up over him and he was lying on the floor like it was that cold or what but I saw the soup on him I thought oh no I've killed him he looked like blood but soap and then uh his might come running over so I [ __ ] hit him and all and anyway I've ended up getting Nick for Section 18s two section 18's on him I've ended up in segregation now in Dove gate uh Dave made me a category a pie prisoner again sent me back the long line which is high security prison again put me back in segregation because uh done with violence he said oh a lot of violence did you get more do you get more sentence Oh I would have been again outside cool that's criminal charges you you assault someone in jail you you do something like that I I was looking down the barrel of a life sentence because of that too strike rule yeah because if you were this at the time if you would have violence on your record would be convicted of violence you get Nick for a second violent fish you get a life sentence they call it IPP or you could just get discretionary life sentence I knew I was going to get a life sentence the place North Derbyshire police actually saved me because it turned out one of the fellas that I'd actually whacked with a thingy he had been done for flashing and their schoolgirls right which is like there's a really the police know that yeah and obviously we didn't know that so and we thought oh he's an half decent prison he seemed all right but he obviously weren't yeah and the police officer when he came to interviewed me down to segregation unit North Derbyshire police officer I don't forget he looked out the door to sell like that he went if you show him into it you own you just raced here he said as far as we're concerned you won't even say what he said he said then and you know what true to his word never heard from him again he probably thought [ __ ] you he deserved here see this is our prison Works prisoners killing prisoners I don't give a [ __ ] yeah but you kill a prison officer or attack a prison officer then it's a big thing nine times out of ten I don't give a [ __ ] it don't go to cold I don't want the publisher really real so I got out of that but I didn't because I ended up going back to Long lighting uh back in seconds and where is Long lighting Worcester what's that okay now the thing about that is uh now I've gone from high security jail to a therapeutic gel to try and do some work on myself and end up attacking two prisoners although I haven't been charged by the police I'm back in segregation now I'm not allowed to mix other prisoners a threat of violence it doesn't look good now what happened is uh two psychiatrists come to interview me because I'd had a bit of psychiatric issue when I was initially sentenced whether I'd have a psychiatric report because of the extreme method I'd use to escape Etc and this one psychiatrist he tapped the pen on the side like that and he's looked at me and he said one signature from me one signature from him and you often brought more Ah that's the last Jesus where do you go in the British prison system when you're in a dispersal system you are really at the end of the road yeah there's nowhere else for you to go yeah you know you either get downgraded in security and there's no way you can be upgraded yeah the only place you can go is to what's called a special uh secure unit and they did talk to me about that at first which was called the severe dangerous personality unity in white Moor they were going to send me there it could have been Broadmoor I'd still be there now because people go there they don't get out where is Broadmoor uh Berkshire I could have ended up there and if you if you if you'd have gone in there you might not be here today I'll probably still be there because what they do is they give you I I believe what's called a chemical a bottom me they just keep giving you psychotropic meds till you [ __ ] until you don't want to go out right you're quite happy to be there like I'm not saying that's the case for all because I do know of people that have been there and got out of times I've changed a bit now but for me they really did think I was like a bit mentally and and I was diagnosed with being bipolar because I could switch quite easy and and in some senses it's the prison system if they don't want the responsibility anymore and they can't be [ __ ] bothered they just say ah he said it's too much we ain't got time or resources to [ __ ] deal with him send him off so I could have gone up more what a dangerous personality unit wire more in the end it was a prison officer called Cheryl who was absolutely fantastic she was a beautiful beautiful woman and this is why I say some prison officers are lovely she was a Welsh prison officer in long line and she come down the SEC one day and um a couple of the good chaps like Kevin Lane and Lenny kempley and people like that these are like the tourist people they was on my winging long line they said they said to prisoners look he's all right let him back up we'll keep an eye on him or whatever so Cheryl's come down to me and she said um if I get you back on the wing are you going to be over yourself and I looked at her and I thought you know what is someone who's showing me a bit of [ __ ] Humanity a bit of humanity considered I've been on the end a lot of brutality over the years and I said to a show I promise you get me back on the wing and now I've had enough I don't want to be in segregation I've got Bob Mosley two sales away from me I don't know if you know Bob Mosley is Bob Mosley he's a prison uh he's been in segregation since 1977 he killed three prisoners he killed one in one in uh Broadband he killed two in Wakefield you know he's never getting out Bob and uh he was two cells away from me that's where I've ended up I'm two sales away from Bob Mosley he's there on a crazy on a lay down and um she said if I'll get you back on the wing you're going to be I and you know what I looked down I thought you know I made a commitment I'm a man and we were I said show I promise I'll be Hive I got back up on the wing and then afterwards I decided Well I'm gonna rather than be in a river I'm going to interact with a psychologist or whatever in terms of trying to rehabilitate and they offer beadish Grending now I heard a lot about grindland obviously over the years oh there's a lot of wrong ones in it and yes there is there's a Wing there full of them but at this time it was a game for a transition phase and it's a therapeutic jail and what they wanted to do is see how it works for your normal sort of strike going cons your arm robbers you had to be convicted of a violent offense and be doing quite a long time so they look like your arm robbers your your whatever else so I went there and I was very fortunate that that when I made the decision to go there it was a big thing for me to go there you know there was um my good friend like notorious like Noel razor Smith and Freddie Lan and these other proper well-respected sensible cons from the prison system had come there from whitemore at the same time so he was trying to empty out the dispersal systems because there's only limited spaces there so when I got there and I was around them sort of people I knew for the first time I might be all right you know and uh yeah I went through that and I stayed there for nearly three years you know and done you know I love a lot of work on myself so that was the point when that Broadmoor basically was the biggest wake up well that was it wouldn't have [ __ ] stopped me that's the sad thing I think the fact that they gave me the alternative to go to that's what saved me because I think if I'd have stayed at long light and it brought out the worst in me I think because of the sort of environment you're in and I was a bit like paranoid than whatever else you could quite easily find yourself getting arrested there for something really [ __ ] serious like I say seven Nutter comes up to you one day and says well I'm gonna do your thing you're going to do what you've got to [ __ ] do yeah and I was at that place in my life where I'd have done what it though make no mistakes if I had a do something I would [ __ ] die and I've done it in my life and regret it afterwards I'm not a psychopath but there's times I've had to do something that I've lay a thought maybe I didn't have to do that or you know I would have done what I had to do you know and you can get caught up in someone else's balance in them gels you know yeah yeah yeah so what was it when you come out then what was that wage were you when you come out yeah I was in my 30s when I was in well into my 30s now I was like 37 30. 7 38 you're now 50. what did you do between 37 and 45 well this is the thing I was doing all right you know I had my scaffolding I was boxing and and I was I I'd done a lot of work on myself but what I hadn't done I don't feel I developed emotionally enough I didn't I underestimated the damage that's spending so long in prison from when I was a young man everything else had done you know I still didn't have the the life skills are shut to cope with life and live in an emotional level you know like relationships and finances and all this sort of fun but I couldn't really reach out and ask people for real but I didn't tap into the Elberta was there and I actually became quite depressed you know and um from the outside's looking in I looked like I was doing fantastic you know at the time I I was uh driving a little bit and healthy fitting healthy boxing I was driving I'd done okay financially I I was in business and I was earning good money and whatever else but I was going slightly mad in the sense I was getting very depressed and I speak about this opening honestly because you know I think everyone should it's not a sign of weakness to suffer from depression or mental illness in any form you know in any form because at any one time they reckon one in three of the population is depressed and don't know it but I was battling with uh depression and I ended up in a place where I thought you know what I I can't do this no more I felt like blowing my own head off but I couldn't tell anyone if you'd have asked me how I was feeling I'd have said ah I'm fine I'm wondering okay I'm cool yeah I started using drugs again I hadn't been clean for a number of years I started to sniff Coke again and take downers and Valium and I was just trying to shut my head down and what happened and this was my Saving Grace in 2011 I went to by my own admission I walked into a doctor's surgery and asked them for help I said look I'm desperate for help I feel like I said I'm losing my mind I feel I'm I'm and I begged them for help and there was no help they could give me two weeks later I went in and asked them for help again and said look I'm suffering from really bad depression I know I'm depressed with didn't help me um I ended up then getting uh going up off my head you end up going out committing two armed robberies when I didn't really need to I was not that I was struggling for money I was just sort of I lost my mind a bit I went out and I committed two robberies and an attempted robbery and ended up getting arrested where were those robberies uh Luton and one in Cambridge yeah it was the last criminal act I ever done and you got a call how did you get caught on that last one but be on end all you know I've done them without any any thought of not getting caught to be honest with you I got arrested on one because uh I was a car I was in was picked out on an ampr and the car that person belonged to obviously he was pulled in and obviously he gave me up I never crossed him I didn't he was never bloody charged but obviously they've come to me arrested me and then on the other one I was picked out on a ID parade and not an attempted one and I pleaded Gear with turmo now when I was arrested for this in in 2012 they took me um straight to Wormwood scrubs I think that's it it's over yeah it's over I'm going away for long long time with my record a long long time the thing that saved me I think that was the moment when my life really changed you know and I say this you know I mean some people climb mountains that [ __ ] don't impress me the the journey from the gut to the pavement's 18 inches that impresses me you know and and I think I did that place where you know I knew it was either it's it I'm at the bottom I'm at the end of the road now where am I off to where am I going am I going to end up not enough broad more am I going to top myself all these feelings going on it was a psychiatrist that saved me the fact that I'd been in an ass rail I had to be assessed immediately because they were they at first they thought I was unfit to plead because of my criminal record and because of the insanity of like to the air from someone from the outside looking in they go what the [ __ ] is this man yeah you know yeah and uh a psychiatrist assessed me because I'd been under psychiatrist before after I'd been in prison and for violence in prison escape life I've spoke about and um quite a long story short that She interviewed me and she said I believe you're that you're bipolar which means like you you can it's basically manic depression yeah that they didn't they what is bipolar the way I would explain it is you go through like a manic phase and literally you burn out and then you go for a really bad crank it's like a really bad depression and it's it's been explained to me it's that's how your body sort of recoups itself it can be it's a biological thing you've got two types of depression endogenous exogenous and ones from my outside factors you know like your relationship goes bad or something you get depressed if it's biological it needs to be controlled chemically like with medication and I'd and I take medication for it and and I've been fine ever since mad in it but anyway the psychiatrist psychiatrist interviewed me and said that you know I should never have been in society when I the moment I went and asked for help and I was crying for real with my former my criminal record and and my the stuff that that I've done over the years they should have took me seriously they should have at least took me in for an assessment or something because I was basically asking you know it took a lot for me to walk in and ask her up and they didn't and I offended and anyway in the time I was on my mind I was a Roman for six six seven months in Scrubs I pleaded guilty to everything you know I'm not going to fight it there's no fight left in me I actually wrote the judge a letter never done this before I viewed judges with distrust and suspicion yeah whatever else and I wrote the judge a letter saying look I've done so well in prison and I've done all the therapy and everything else I'd lost my way you know I really tried I really tried when I come out but you know I just don't know what happened and whatever and I said if you throw away the key now I said you are denying me the chance to become a productive member of society and maybe make a difference and whatever else and I wrote the judge there and he read it out in court and and I meant what I said and I could see he was moved by that I could see the judge was moved anyway he sentenced me he said my hands are tied you know I have to send you to prison I hope you get the help while you're there you know lovely beautiful judge lovely liberal man yeah he gave me five years Epp which is five-year sentence with what the Epp stands for extended public protection because technically I am well I was at the time because of my criminal work nervous a danger to the public so he's giving me a five EPP I'd like to say I've never offended since yeah you know and I've gone on to do great things with self and support of others but yeah that's that's the you know I came out of prison when I was released in the beginning of 2017 it was I was I was what was called a mapper which is multi-agency public protection I had to be monitoring in society to make sure I wasn't a threat and danger to it you had to be monitored yeah I had to be monitored what should I explained that they wouldn't just release me into society I had to go and stay in a a halfway house for like six months to be monitored to make sure I wasn't with a tag around your ankle No Tag No Tag no they they do that with like certain types of kernels especially sex offenders would be like that's something which I'm yeah I've category yeah you know but uh to make sure I was uh Not Afraid or danger to society and I had some great support while I was in that halfway house it was a good road to go down it gave me a good foundation to build so you come out 2017. we're now 2021 yeah what has been your world since you come out drug-free alcohol-free no life completely drug-free Ray Bishop version two yeah version two you know it's not how you start out that matters it's where you're going you know and I'd like to think that all my experiences in making sense of my own life may benefit someone else you know I don't give a [ __ ] about me in the sense of wanting to be a big name or a celebrity or I'm this I'm out I couldn't give a [ __ ] I don't need money I've done well for myself in business it's not about that but in helping someone especially if you just help one other person you help yourself because I believe Rehabilitation is something that you actively engage in I don't take it for granted I don't just think I'm going to wake up tomorrow and think oh I'm going to live a lovely law abide in life and anything can happen in life can't it you know and but um so far so good you know I've not broke the law since that last time I did break the law which was nine years ago now as the prison sentence I've done and whatever else you know I've become an author a virgin you know I've so virgin tapped you up found out your story and then yeah and signed you well I'm very fortunate uh my friend Noel razor Smith who's a what an amazing author you know he's had lots of books out he said you've got to write your book and and I discovered I can write you know and something else when I was in prison you know when I was doing that big long sentence it was a place when I got into the therapy I did better myself I educated myself I didn't educate myself I went open University and studied for a degree in Psychology and all this stuff and it was all part of the start of the process you know you could always make up for lost ground you can always start again you know if you're having a [ __ ] day today you can go well I'm going to start again tomorrow you understand that it's going to be a bad day so today to deal with it it's gonna be a bad day we're only human yeah you know I've learned we've experienced now especially being drug-free and giving myself a chance and live in a law abiding life that you become more attractive in the sense that you attract better people you know the people that I would have mixed with in the past I'm talking anyone or anything I choose not to I don't associate with criminals and whatever why would I yeah I'm not committing a criminal life and here I am today in business and I associate with some pretty major players in the business world the legal straight business well and I have to pinch myself sometimes I think wow these people take me seriously and above all trust me and you know because um I'm [ __ ] people I look people in the iron if I can be a job tomorrow for example so I can be there if I can't I say I'm sorry I can't get there I'm really busy or whatever else and and I've gone on now to having some pretty good contracts and whatever else and it's becoming for you yeah I employ before I pay my taxes you know so that's the first 45 years how many years did you spend in prison 16 and a half worse wow and I'll put the half on there because it's it does matter it doesn't even half a year and and I'm so how do I know that how do I know I've done 31 prisons because I wrote The Lord biography I sat there and done the mess and done the sums you know and just just before we finish up everybody because this has been a fascinating story here in your life and I really do appreciate you coming to the studio and telling it and being honest and whatever where can people find your book well you can Outlaw you can actually pre-order it now on Amazon because it's it's due for for big the major releases March the 17th in the spring but you can you can uh get on Amazon and one thing I'll say I mean I'm not profit from this you know any proceeds of money I get I'm actively involved with a charity uh put down your life change your life which is a charity with some great people Ben span and Terry Ellis and different people that that really campaign against knife violence in this country and any process I'm going to donate it to them I don't need the money it's never about the money but it's a it's a motivational book and the one thing I will say is the people that have read it the greatest gift I've got is someone read it once and he was in a a prisoner who read it because it was pre-released before and after I got the arrest I shelved it and they've urgent have had enough faith for me to re-release a prisoner in a segregation unit said he felt suicidal and he read it and he said after that he said it changed his life it's not you know I didn't do that but just something in it inspired him to change his life that one person yeah and three years later he's he he's out he's working he's living in law abiding on his life and I think that's not my doing but you helped where everyone's our teacher you know when the student is ready the teacher will appear and I've had some fantastic people give me some fantastic Snippets of wisdom over the years I'm just a vessel like anyone else I'll just pass it on none of it's mine I'm not really that [ __ ] wise I'm not Kung Fu Panda yeah but anything that's been given to me freely I love to give it to anyone else and there's a lot of wisdom in there most importantly a lot of experience crime does not pay it doesn't pay does not pay mentally emotionally physically it is no crime is victimless and we have no right to be out that way and what I will say to anyone who's living that life and thinks they can't get out you know I was at the bottom of the [ __ ] Barrel yeah and I found the way out you know anyone can change you know leopards do change their spots and no matter how lost the calls you think you are you know a little bit of self-belief and believe in yourself you can achieve anything totally agree anything right on that mate let's finish up now you seem like you're in a really good place right now thank you it's lovely to see off uh amazing that you've got the book out um thank you for Virgin allowing us to have this exclusive wonderful thank you thank you very much indeed it's a pleasure mate thank you [Music]

Channel: Dodge Woodall

Views: 92,706

Keywords: ray bishop, ray, bishop, dodge Woodall, dodge, podcast, interview, chat, full episode, eventful entrepreneur, Britain's most wanted man, criminal, crime, kidnap, smuggle, wanted, jail, prison, police, London, robbery, armed, smuggling, drugs, people smuggling

Id: 1LNu2XgRozI

Length: 88min 36sec (5316 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 31 2022