 Oes fod yn fawr i'ch wneud llawer o'ch cyd-dweithio mewn cyfnod o'r rhan o'ch gwaith yn ymgyrch, a fyddwn ni'n hefyd o'r cyfnod o'r ddweithio'r cyfnod, a'r ddiwrnod o'r ddweithio'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod, a'i'r ddweithio'r ddweithio'n ddod yn ymgwr i'n gyd-dweithio'r cyfnod. Mae'r maen nhw'n teimlo i'r 11 oed, mae'n ddweithio i'n ddweithio i'r 11 oed. fe fyddwn i'r hirff sy'n llwyffydd, rym ni'n dwy'r hirff Returnress system, a mae unrhyw unrhyw sy'n llyfr sy'n llyfrwyffydd. Fyddwn i'r hirff sy'n llyfrwyffydd unlikelyll ac mae unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw unrhyw. Yna yw yw mynd i kair, rym ni wedi gwneud o'u ryffyr willod hyn y peth ar y ddechrau hynna, ddim yn gallu wahanol, Felly, dwi'n bwynt i fy wneud wnaeth i fy nid, rwy'n gobeithio'n gefnwyr. Felly mae'r un o'r mynd yn ychydig, rwy'n gobeithio gw chartsiaeth. Felly mae'n ddiwedd, roeddwch chi. Yw'r mwy CA, roeddwch chi wnaeth i'r rai. Yn mwy Ionwch'i rubwyr, ddim yn y bobl yn dda, i chi'n ddim yn ddim yn y bobl yn dda, i'n gŵr mansion i ddych yn yr aesach i'r gwahoddi, rwy'n gweithio eu ddych yn yw. Rwy'n gallu'n wneud yw'n mynd! Mae i'r mwyaf yn ddweud, mae'n ddweud i'r ddod yn y cyfnod. Felly yn ystafell, mae'n gweithio i'r ddod y gallu cyd-dweud. Pwysig i'w ddweud i'w ddondol ac rwy'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. Ddi'u rhai mae'r ddod i'u rhai mae'r ddod i'u rhai mae'r ddod i'u ddod i'u rhai mae'r ddod i'u ddod. Felly rai mae hwnnwuen i ddod. Roel. Dwy'n gallu gyfnod y tŷnfyrm. I can't even talk about your blood, it just wiles me up blood. Bum, we're on! Today's guest, we've got his round brown hat, are you brother? Good man, I'm good, how are you? Phenomenal mate, feeling good. That's good, that's good, that's good. Thank you for getting me down here man. Aw, it's a pleasure mate. Phenomenal story brother. Thank you, thank you. From street gangs to then one in the pride of Britain, which is a phenomenal achievement. From your life, I watched your story on Ladd Bible. Millions of views and very rightly so, it's powerful stuff. Thank you, I appreciate you talking about some of that stuff today as well. Yeah, a lot of trauma for the past to then changing your life and that's what we're all about, man, it's finding motivation. No matter how fucked up your life is, you're living proof that people can change. Thank you man, I appreciate that, trust me. I appreciate that a lot, trust me. How's life been? Life has been good, you know, life has been good. Obviously I've got my own company, more talk, more action. So we deliver mentoring and lived experience training across the country, doing skill-based activities for young people as well. So things have been going good since we're in the pride of Britain. Just had a bit more contacts come through and people wanting to do things for the company, get involved with the company. So we've been able to impact a lot more young people's lives. So yeah, no, it's been really good. That's what it's all about. We'll plug that straight away. We're working people find this company. So on Instagram, you can type it in on Instagram, more talk, more action. Again, people can just message me directly on Instagram as well. Here's Ron Brown. We've also got a Facebook account, more talk, more action again as well. We've also got a website, www.moretalkmoreaction.org.uk. I'll leave all that stuff in the description as well. I'll always go back to the start with my guest brother. Where you grew up and how it all began? Yeah, man. So basically, let me kind of, I need to shorten my story down because my story's long. The story's long. So when I was like five years old, I fell in the bath of boiling hot water. I burnt the whole upper right-hand side of my buddy. A lot of people go, nah, man, that's crazy. How did that happen? So back in the day in our house, we never had central heating. You had to turn on a switch and then that switch heated up the water over time. One night we got in and my mum said to my sister, it's too late to boil the water. So just boil some water in a kettle and then the pot on the stove and fill up the baby basin. It was a baby basin. It's not like an actual full-on bath that I found. It was a baby basin. So my sister's filling up the baby basin. I went upstairs. I was being fast. I was around like five years old at this point. I was being fast. I climbed up onto the side of the bath, balancing on the side of the bath and I slipped and I fell in. But I had a jumper on at the time and had little holes in it. And when I fell into the water, my skin melted through the holes in my jumper. So my jumper was on the inside of my body. So my mum came upstairs out of panic. She ripped my jumper off. Obviously, it's a panicking moment. I'm screaming. My sister's screaming. So my mum's just come up and ripped my jumper off out of panic. I mean, she ripped it off. She ripped all my skin off at the same time. So I don't know if you're there. So if you can see around there, that's where it starts. That's where the jumper was. So obviously, all that skin there, it goes all across my chest, down my stomach, around on my side. So all that skin is actually from my legs. It's from my thighs. I was in hospital for a considerable amount of time. And then I was having skin grafts, or the skin from my legs being put onto my right hand side of my body. And then when I came out of hospital, as you can imagine, primary school, people starting to bully me, call me names. And that's when things really started to change for me, you know. Developed a really bad anger problem. And it was uncontrollable. I would black out, couldn't control myself. I didn't know how to control myself as well, you know what I mean? Because again, as you can imagine, at that young age, I'm just like, the emotions are just taking me over. You know what I'm saying? So at this point, I'm growing up. I'm getting kicked out of primary school. I'm getting kicked out of secondary school again for fighting. I'm fighting everybody. If he was a guy, I was fighting you. That was just it, because that was what it was like in my head. Because I got into my headers like, I wanted to become this big bad guy. But I knew the only way to become this big bad guy is if I had fights with the guys in it. So that's all I wanted to do. So every day I was fighting to school, in school, from school, then it spilled out into my home life. I'm fighting my mum, I'm fighting my brothers, I'm fighting my sisters, my cousins, anyone. That kind of came into my facility, you know what I mean? Because again, I wanted to build this name for myself. But that again was destroying my relationship at home with my mum. So my mum couldn't handle me. She couldn't handle me as a young person. I was punching holes through the doors. I took out half of my wall. I picked my wardrobe up and threw my wardrobe down the stairs at my mum. It took out half of my wall as my mum jumped out the way. I've had fights with the police in my house. All sorts, because my mum couldn't handle me. So she would call the police, thinking that the police were going to do something with me. But actually the police were making it worse. Because now I'm having fights with the police in my house. The police are trying to break my hands in the car when they handcuffed me in the car. Never put the seatbelt on me. That seat handcuffed me behind my back. The police man, he was driving the car. As he was driving fast, he slammed on the brakes. I was headbutting the front of the seat. Every time I was headbutting the front of the seat, he was like, have I hurt you yet? I was like, now you haven't hurt me. Carried on again, drove fast again, slammed on the brakes. Boom, have I hurt you yet? Now you haven't hurt me. These were the kind of things that I was experiencing when I was growing up, which was then again fueling my anger, making me worse. How old were you then? 10 points there, I was like 11. 11, 12. Mum kicked me out when I was 11. That's when she first kicked me out. We went to social services, went to the actual building. Social services. And my mum sat me down. We sat down in front of this woman on a desk. And she looked at my mum. And my mum looked at her and went, you need to take my son. And mum was like, we're not going to take your son. You're his mum, we can't do that. And she was like, well, you either take my son now or I'm just going to leave him here. So the woman looked at my mum again and she went, you can't do that, you get me like that's your son. So my mum just got up and walked out and left me there. I went and moved in with my Audi sister, lived with her for a year. And then I moved back in with my mum. Now the relationship that me and my mum had was that she would kick me out and I'll go back home. She would kick me out and I'll go back home. That was our relationship. And even though I knew she was going to kick me out, she would go back home, right? That's where I grew up, you know what I mean? And then from there, it still continued to happen. She was kicking me out. I'm sleeping rough on the street. I'm going to school, knowing the night before I was sleeping on the canal. For weeks I was sleeping on the canal, literally sleeping in the bush. The main meals I used to have for the day were the meals that I was having at school. But no one knew. I'm acting like everything's normal. I'm walking the roads like everything's normal. I'm acting like everything's normal. And what I used to do with them, I used to chill with them until it got dark. And then when it got dark and everyone was like, yeah, I'm going to go home now. I just used to go to the canal. Did you never see anyone? There was a few times, like I surfed at people's houses. There was a couple of times. But again, it was that embarrassment in it. I don't want to go and tell people that I'm homeless. You know what I mean? I don't want to tell people that I'm on the street. I don't want to tell people that I'm living that way. And again, it was like an ego thing because I meant to be this this hard guy in it. I meant to be this guy that's trying to build his reputation. So how am I meant to be that guy building that reputation and I'm going to man saying to man I'm homeless. You know what I mean? And it was like an ego thing for me. So I moved back in with my mum. Then when I was 13, my mum had a massive argument and she ended up kicking me out again. So now I'm back on the street again. And I ended up moving in with, he weren't even, the guy that went to my school and one day I went to his house and knocked on his door. The only reason why I knew where he lived was because I watched him go to his house one day and I knocked on his door and his mum answered. Never met his mum before, ever. And she looked at me and I said oh, he's so and so there. She said no, he's not here. And I said oh okay and I started to walk away. And I went to walk away, she stopped me. And she said young man come back, come back. So I went back and she said I can sense there's something wrong with you. There's something happening in your life, what's going on. I feel your energy. She could feel the energy and I was like nothing. Bearing in mind I just woke up from sleeping on the street and went to a yard. And she went now I can sense there's something going on. She went come inside, have a hot drink. So I went inside, had a hot drink. And she sat me down again and she said tell me what's going on. She said just tell me the truth, I can see it in your face. And I sat there when I told her, told her that I was living on the street, had a bad relationship with my mum. And she looked at me and she said nah man, your mum don't want to look after you. I said nah, she said it's alright, you can live here. Like that, took me into her house. Took me into her house, lived with her for two years. A random woman I've never met before in my whole entire life, ended up living with her for two years. That woman is the most important woman in my life. Like if I ever told you how highly I regard her. I call her mum, my kids call her nan. I visit her daily. Like she messages me weekly. He's on a ULK. Son a ULK. And he's just like, this woman isn't even my mum. But I lived with her for two years. From when I was 13 to 15. Now I left school when I was 15 because I was the youngest in my year, birthdays in August. So when I was transitioning from school to college I was still like 15. And my mum found out where I was. Bareilly my mum lives round the corner from this woman. My mum found out where I was two years later. Took my mum two years. She found out where I was. She came. She physically kicked the door off. His hinges came into the house with one of my sisters. And she demanded that I come back home. Now this woman looked to me and she said, Hezwan no, you can either continue to live here or you can go back home and live with your mum. It's completely up to you. I made that choice to go back home and move in with my mum. People always say, Hezwan, why did you do that? And I say to them, I did it because for the whole two years that I was living with this woman even though she was very important to me and she was stepping in as that mother figure for me the only real person that I actually wanted was my mum in it. My real mum. The only place that I really wanted to be was at home in my own bed, in my own room. So now that my mum's here asking me to go home I'm going home in it. That's what I'm doing now. So I went home a week later my mum came back out again. So you were always chasing your mum's affection? Always chasing her. How was that to have been a volatile relationship with getting through all the time to being homeless? Nobody caring basically. Did you remember in a loving home did you accept that straight away or did it take time? I accepted it straight away and actually funnily enough my attitude changed when I moved in with this woman I didn't disrespect her once I didn't speak to her disrespectfully I never acted disrespectfully if she told me to wash up I washed up them plates I didn't try and backchat because again I saw it as you have stepped out of your way to help me and for me to come into your house and disrespect you in your house. But then when I would go home I would disrespect my mum I had her warped it's like how can I explain it people will do things in their own house but they won't do it out in other people's house especially as black people you go to a next man's yard out of respect if his mum says to you can you just wash up them two dishes your mum asks me to wash up the dishes so I'm washing up the dishes but I wouldn't wash up the dishes in my own house my mum's fighting before I'm doing that so again I've done it out of mutual respect because her son was also in my year at school so again he was out of respect I didn't want to disrespect him and his mum I thought I was unacceptable so I done everything that she said I never disrespected her so I accepted that love that she was giving to me off the bat straight away and I didn't want to ruin that by disrespecting me because I knew if I ruined that relationship there where else am I going I got nowhere else to go so I'm going to end up back on the street so really I had to I had to be respectful What was your mum's relationship not bringing like with her family my mum's upbringing well I've never actually spoken to my mum about her upbringing it was only quite recently actually that I just mentioned it and I said mum because me and my real mum I actually live with my real mum now we're closer than close now but again that's because of age and I've grown up matured a bit that person that I was when I was 13 years old so I said to mum the other day and I looked at her and I said mum like what have you been through in your life and she looked to me and she said that's something that I don't even want to talk to you about and I said why and she said because it's too horrific and I was like so when she said that to me it kind of made me think no wonder why we brought up the way you know what I mean she's faced tragedy in her own life she's faced trauma in her own life so that's mirrored onto us all of my brothers and sisters all of my sisters and me have been kicked out of the house none of us have left willingly so my three sisters and me have all been kicked out of the house but that tells you that your mum's clearly battling with something maybe she's got a lot of abandonment issues and like you said it's mirror image and it's to break that connection you clearly still would do anything for your mum how does she feel that everything you're doing now does she accept that, does she give you love my mum knows I was on a zoom call the other day giving a talk to some young people and everyone was asking about my mum where's your mum now what's your relationship like and I went just one second guys hold on and I went mum she was like what? I said just one second I went downstairs and put the camera in her face and everyone was like oh is that your mum and I was like yeah that's my mum how does she feel about that you were saying that when she used to kick you out is she okay with that as well again we've had to have our conversation when I went back to my mum we had to sit down and have a heart to heart talk to each other because one thing that me and my mum did was we shouted at each other I'm quite a loud speaking person naturally my mum's the same so when me and my mum are talking to each other it actually sounds like we arguing but we're not we're just having a normal conversation but sometimes because I'm quite quick tempered and she's quick tempered all it takes is one little spark and we're both up in the road trying to fight each other but again through age and maturity I realise that I don't need to be doing that with my mum because at the end of the day she's my mum you only get one mum and I'm not that person anymore so I don't want to be like that but we had to sit down and have the heart to heart together and just kind of like iron out all of those kinks I had to tell her because my mum doesn't even know half of the things that I've done in my life from the age of from when she last kept me out from when I was 15 she doesn't know anything that's happened to me since I was 15 up until now Has she ever asked us she just tried to block it out She's never asked Do you see a lot of your traits in your mum I would say yeah I would say there are certain traits of me that I do get from my mum there are certain traits that I get from my dad but a lot of it more is probably from my mum my mum's quite a hard woman she's quite hard and stern, she's a typical Jamaican woman ready for war every two seconds ready to have a fight every five minutes and it's like I'm in that same mum does you know what I mean but my mum's a good woman and what people need to understand is that it wasn't my mum's fault when I was younger because even again from the comments that I've been seeing on the lad bible and video and stuff like that everyone's like his mum's bad how can his mum kick him out and all this kind of stuff and what I have to say is you don't know what I was like when I was younger you wasn't physically there when it's nothing that I'm proud of me and my mum's had physical fights like I throw my mum through doors I threw my mum through a marble table in our living room I threw my mum through the table I've took out knives to my mum so when people are saying your mum shouldn't kick you out how can your mum kick out you when you was 11 because those are the things I was doing and she didn't know what to do with me she didn't know how to handle that she didn't know how to manage that and for me and my temper I had strength when I was young man I was quite strong when I was younger and my mum couldn't physically fight me I was too strong for her that's why again she was always calling the police because she didn't know what else to do she didn't know how else to manage it she probably feels for her own life at some point oh 100% we even had a conversation about it the other day and she even said to my face she said hezren I was scared of you when you were younger my own mum was saying I was scared of you when I was like 12 so when did you start getting into the gang life so that started happening more towards when so when I got kicked out I was taken in by well I went to an emergency accommodation and when I was at the emergency accommodation I was put into that through the council and I was staying there and then they put me into a temporary accommodation which was a two bedroom fully furnished flat no a one bedroom fully furnished flat sorry had that when I just turned 16 I was trying to find college and then I eventually found a college but no college wanted to take me in because I never had no grades but one college did and they told me that I had to do two years of further education to make up the grade so I said okay cool I'm going to do that now when I was at college that's when I started to hang around with people that wasn't normally hanging around with before people that weren't even from my area when I started to hang around with them because of the college that I went to it was quite central in Birmingham from different areas we'll go into that college and stuff like that so I started to mix with people from there again not even realising it's really a gang thing it was just more like you know it's just certain man that man's a rolling with, man's just chilling with I ended up getting kicked out of college got kicked out of college in my first year and then started wandering the streets now I'm in town every day that's all I can do I'm just in town walking around chilling and then because I'm essential again there's so much people from different areas now that I'm mixing with and because I'm not going to college now I start mixing with those guys even more and we jamming and we chilling and we walking around and then eventually man start going to parties then you go into this place and you go into that place and then you're getting brought on this ride out you're going on that ride out and then slowly you find out that actually yo bro man's man's repping now like I'm repping now like work one like I got ballies hanging out my pocket I got ballies hanging out my pocket and that I'm throwing up signs and I'm just like I don't even know how that even how that even happened but it just happened because there was nothing else to do you know from when I was living in my temporary accommodation the council then put me into my permanent accommodation which was a two bedroom unfurnished flat so I had a two bedroom unfurnished flat when I was 16 I'm on jobseekers allowance I was getting what like I was getting like £60 £60 £80 every two weeks from the job centre bearing in mind I don't know really know how to spend this money I've never really gone shopping before I've never really bought clothes before I remember the first time I went shopping and I had my money I didn't even know what to buy because I didn't know how to cook what am I buying from the shop you get me I'm buying packs of biscuits because that's the only thing that I know I'm buying sweets and crisps you get me I didn't know how to make a meal I never even had a cookat to even make a meal in I never had a fridge I never had nothing so I spent most of my days out on the road but then as I'm out on the road the guys that I'm hanging around with they're showing me love in it they're showing me love that I wasn't getting from anywhere else so now and this is what I try to make people understand to me it wasn't a gang family family thing it's a brotherhood we brothers it's not a gang a lot of the mandem as well was in similar situations that I was in broken homes dad weren't around or mum weren't around bad relationships with their parents again bad anger problems now man's not saying that those things are are acceptable then just because we had those things we had to enter a gang I'm not saying that but because of that brotherhood that we had it just we just fitted in we just fitted in that's all that you can say you fitted in but then it gets to that point now whereas because I didn't care about anybody else and because I because I was on that certain path anyway I just decided to spiral down it even more I might as well go further down the rabbit hole in it I'm already in the rabbit hole so why don't I just go further down it might as well so that's what I was doing now we've got guns now I'm selling I'm selling cocaine and I'm going into big warehouses where man's are chopping down weed man's are chopping down plants of weed we had bathtubs full of weed you know what I mean I remember the first time I started selling cocaine and it was funny because what happened was my bridging he gave me the cocaine he gave me the drugs and it was all wrapped up already it was all wrapped up ready to sell but ok now listen to how mad this is some of those wraps that he gave me was candle wax he had crushed up candle wax and literally crushed it up and then wrapped it but some of it was actual cocaine you get me so imagine now some never sell cocaine before I don't know why it even is to get me and I said I've got this thing off one of my boys and he was like do you even know if it's real I said I don't even know and we had another bridging that done coke so he came and he took out one of the bags and he sniffed it and he was like that's good stuff you know bro that's good stuff and I was like is it I didn't even know if it was good or not I didn't know anything about it so I was like ok cool and I said to my bridging and I said bro how do you man even sell that blood like man just gave it to me but what do you do with it really so he started saying ok cool well you got any contacts you got any links I was like I don't know anything about that he was like alright cool well just come chill with me for a bit and whatever so then started to kind of he then kind of sold it for me on behalf of me and then just kind of gave me a little bit of the money you get what I'm saying but kind of then started to learn the ropes of it again sometimes we had like some man would lick a crop or something like that you know what I'm saying they'll go and go lick a big crop and man will just split the money off that or I was doing little bits of work here and there I was doing security work actually I was doing like site security with like dogs and stuff I started doing a bit of that or cash in hand stuff never anything like big nothing on the books just doing a lot of cash in hand work just trying to survive and as I said like man was doing robberies man was doing things that man weren't proud of you know what I mean and a lot of it I was doing again because I was trying to survive but also as well just because I was trying to fit in what kind of robberies? just all sorts of car robberies man was running up in people's houses he said just like crops man was going for crops man was going for the big crops trying to find all the time he was trying to find a big crop he was walking down the road trying to slip out a crop into one house and he was like that house is weeding it and he was just like no it doesn't bro nah it's got all the signs of having weeding it bro look it's got blacked out windows and all these black curtains the windows open got a little tube hanging out the window oh yeah it's not weeding it and next thing you know you find yourself later on that night trying to run up in the house but as I said it was just mad I remember there was a time and we had a gun and there was about six of us I don't know where this gun came from I don't know where it came from but these gears just came with it and everyone was bare gas everyone was like yo bro let's shoot it he gave me like let's shoot it so everyone was just one round and it managed to shoot in the gun it was one round you get me and one of my bridgins he sets the gun and he fires it but never realised the back fire and he broke his wrist as he shot the gun man was like blood take him to Dudley Road Hospital taking Dudley Road Hospital man broke his wrist man was walking in there like what happened to him he fell over and must have mashed up his hand when he fell over little stupid things like that and again when you're in that world when you're in that world then things are like then things are minor but it's scary how fast they can spiral out of control very very like quickly and again when I speak to people I say you know to get those things as I said is minor one phone call one phone call and it's there it's not a problem I remember I had an incident and after the incident I saw one of my friends and I was telling him about the incident and he said hezwan you know there's a shop going round the corner with one shall in it and I said oh nah and he went but if you need it it's round the corner told me where it is round the corner in some tree he said and you'll find it there one shop gone with one shall he said if you use it you have to let man know that you used it I was like see there was so much people that I used to hang around with that just walked with guns like it was nothing in their JD bag man had it in their JD bag back in the day in their draw string JD bag that was always the thing that you looked out for first their JD bag if they had a JD bag but how many of those kids how many of those kids walk in a street just now even now do you know what I mean it seems to get more knives and trying to get my shetties out and big zombie knives and all them kind of things but it was scary to how much people were had access to them things when did you start trying to make the transition when did you start trying to improve your life so that happened when so we've done a robbery the robbery happened and I was at Crown Court it got to Crown Court because I just turned 18 so because I turned 18 now it's got to Crown Court yeah so I'm in Crown Court we're going through it this is cool like it's fine like everything's blessed and um I'm there pleading not guilty I'm there like now I'm not guilty not guilty and I had a um you know you got a barista but my barista wasn't my barista he was like a duty barista so he was someone that worked in the court so he wasn't someone that I had paid for so we got this barista but those are the ones that you just don't want to get because they're no good they're not really actually on your side they're just trying to get through the cases through the court so imagine now it got to about the fifth day I had done my testimony already yeah I won't lie they made me look stupid because I wasn't cleared up I never knew nothing really and um now it's the man's turn to go into the duck so man goes into the duck but bear it in mind I sinned man that day and he wasn't looking at me he was with his mum he was with his mum and he was looking down at the ground I'm saying you're cool and he's just looking down at the ground not saying nothing I was thinking that's weird you get me and at the time I was with my sister two of my sisters came to the court and um I looked at my sisters and I said nah my man's acting dodgy still like my sisters was like yeah and I was like yeah he's acting dodgy he got into the court I'm sat in the duck my man goes into the stand my man's like yeah my man did all that pointed at me like yeah that guy there he was the one that done everything I don't even know him my man was like I don't actually know who he is I looked at my sisters I looked at my sisters looking at me mouth open I'm looking at him like what's he doing my man's in the court I don't know who he is nah my man done everything still my man just came up and done this and that and I was sat there like I'm looking at him and he couldn't even look at me in my face and I was just like raw like raw that is actually mad so then imagine come out of the court couple days later was the sentencing and I got found guilty the other man didn't got found innocent found innocent I then had to plead guilty because the barrister came up to me and said from that testimony you have to plead guilty because if you plead not guilty it's going to be curtains basically and I was like okay but again I'm just listening to what the barrister is saying because I don't know so I just went okay cool I plead guilty so then it comes to the sentencing I was like how do you plead guilty and then the judge looked to me and said I'm going to make an example out of you that's what the judge said to me and then she was like come back in so so much time for your sentencing so I said okay cool now the reason why that happened was during that robbery I punched a guy and when I punched him I hit him so hard I broke his cheekbone and his eye socket when the police arrested me they thought I hit him with a weapon so they were like did you hit him with a hammer and I said now I hit him with my fist and they were like there's no way you hit him that hard with your fist that you caused that much damage and I said I hit him with my fist and when they found out that I'd done like martial arts and boxing when I was in the court the judge looked to me and told me that I was a weapon and told me that I was a danger to society because I know how to fight and because I what she said was because I constantly hit a target every day I know how to physically cause harm to someone so in that situation instead of hitting him I should have done something different that's why she said I'm going to make an example out of you when you're sentencing so I've gone away I've gone to a report at probation I walked in the door and there was this black woman standing there and I walked in the door and she just looked at me and she just went not another black man that's what she did and I went she went are you my next appointment I said I don't know she went what's your name I said hezzan brown she said sit down in the chair man said sit down in the chair so I'm thinking is this woman you get me like so I sat down in the chair and sat there and then she calls me into a little room little box room so I'm sat there and she goes tell me what happened man she went lay straight she said tell me what happened I said nah I ain't telling you what happened I ain't telling you what happened I ain't no snitch I ain't telling you what happened she went snitch she said little man you can't even be a snitch she said your friends are already snitched on ya you already got found guilty she was like where have you got snitched in your head she was like you do know you got found guilty innit and I was like yeah and she said so what are you talking about being a snitch everything's already been out in the court you know what I mean so I was like seeing and she said look I'm gonna be real with ya she said depending on how today goes depends on how you get sentenced and I was like okay and she was like just tell me what happened man but she went tell me your involvement she went tell me what you did what did you do so I told her what I did and then after when I told her what I did I told her about my upbringing and stuff like that because she asked me she said how have you been brought up on whatever and I told her and after she started laughing and she was like and I looked at her I said why are you laughing for she went you're not going to prison I said what she went you're not going to prison she said if you go to prison you're going to end out 10 times worse than you are now she said you're not going to prison I'm going to ensure that you're not going to go to prison and I looked to her and I said you can't you can't how can you tell me that I'm not going to prison my barrister came out when that day when he was in court my barrister came up to me and said hes run you're looking up to 10 years for this he was like you can be getting up to 10 years not that I was going to get 10 years but he was like you can be looking up to 10 years for this you get me so anywhere in between that you know what I mean so I was like okay cool so I looked to the woman I said how can you tell me that I'm not going to prison my barrister saying that I'm looking at 10 years and she was like listen leave it with me I'm just going to write a bad boy report for you leave it with me and I was like okay cool again I don't know about none of this stuff I've never been caught up in the system like that hard so I leave about the day I remember the day before my sentencing I was I've ever told you my mindset and I went to my yard I bought myself a McDonald's Burger King and a KFC Literally he went to Burger King the KFC and McDonald's bought myself burger meal chicken, coleslaw beans, I had free drinks I'm thinking in my head I'm not feeling this I'm not having this again I'm going to prison for 10 years I'm crying in my yard I was burning in my yard I'm thinking I'm going to prison I'm eating the meal I'm munching it down I'm stuffed with my face I'm savouring you know I was like I'm yaming on the chicken I'm savouring it You get me I'm thinking I'm not eating this again and then I go for my sentencing I still remember I was wearing I was wearing my white shirt my grey trousers and I was sat in the dark I was sat behind her like it was like a plastic screen you get me like an unbreakable screen had the prison guards standing over me and that I'm thinking yeah my man's just going to chaperon me down to the van because you got to pass the van as well into the crown court so you can see the van that you're going to be taking away and you get me so I'm thinking I'm going to prison I'm in the dock my heart's pounding bro I'm sitting there calm cool collected I'm just sitting there waiting for the judge to come in but my heart's beating beating beating the judge comes in Mr Brown stand up stand up and she looks at me and she goes I was going to sentence you to prison today obviously through the from the court case she was like my sole objective has been to sentence you to prison for what you did but she went I don't know who you spoke to though but your pre-sentencing report is glowing and when I sat there all I could think about was the woman from probation when she was saying don't worry leave it with me and I was just like okay obviously she had said that but she never said the rest so she then turned around and she said off the back of that report I'm going to make a suggestion that instead of sending you to prison I'm going to give you a second chance but this second chance is only a one time thing that's going to happen she said I'm going to give you a two-year suspended sentence and she was like let's see what happens with this two-year suspended sentence because I believe you'll be back here that's what she said and I'm just standing there thinking I don't even know what a two-year suspended sentence is I'm still thinking I'm going to prison so she said I'm going to give you a two-year suspended sentence four hundred and sorry I said like 260 hours of community service and then she gave me a hefty fine and then the barrister turned around and went I was like looking at him like like why won't you get me and he was like you can go on that so obviously I'm like go on so I walked out I'm gassed I'm thinking raw like man's beat the case kind of thing and I remember when I stepped outside when the fresh air licked my face bro I ain't going to lie to you I was a different guy it was like I was fresh out it's like I had just come out of prison after ten years and I was just feeling that fresh air I can't even tell you how crisp the air felt on my skin it never felt nothing like it man and from there I was like nah and then I was sat in my house with a friend of mine he was in the same gang as me at the time a couple days later and I looked at him and I said bro why are we doing this and he said what do you mean I said why are we doing this fam like why are we repping like why are we doing the things that we do bro you get me like I've had men trying to stop obviously you sat across from me you can see I got scars all over my face I got scars there, scars across my lip I got scars all over my hands, my knuckles gone my knuckles gone, that knuckles gone you get me stab myself there in my hand there what was that all rough this was just drawing the time but I was in the gang just fighting and that was that was a big fight down in town outside the McDonald's in town had a big fight ended up stabbing myself in my hand it was a girl that passed me the knife stabbed myself in my hand and then cut my that's a man's teeth there that's a man's tough there cracked my knuckle all the way down the middle down the side there you didn't punch them in the face but then their tough got stuck in my hand man's looking at me oh you're going to have to ask me tough for that bro that's going to get infected man's teeth stuck in my hand there I had a piece of glass that big stuck in my head all the skin of my forehead there it rolled over you could literally just white there was a piece of glass like that sticking out my forehead man smashed the mirror off my face that scar there that runs on my lip there outside the custard factory in Birmingham and a guy came with a metal bat and hit me in my mouth my teeth went through my lips that's why that scar is there you know that night when that happened do you know where I went mom's house I ran to my mom's house I was on my mom's front door crying and my mom came out and there was literally blood just pouring out my mouth my teeth were still protruding from my lips and my mom dragged me into the house I'm on the floor my mom dragged me into the house she had to take my lips out of my teeth and she was like what are you doing and I'm crying I'm like mom I'm getting involved in awesome madness and she was just like what are you doing out there on the roads what are you doing it must have broke her heart to see as well I don't know I mean what my mom always says is the reason why you're alive is because I've been praying for you this whole time and I'm like she must have burnt a lot of fucking candles she must have been praying a lot because I ain't gonna lie God has brought me to where I am now and don't ever think for a second that I don't believe that God has brought me to where I am now he made me go through all of that to become the person that I am now to help others that's how I see it because if I never had that experience in that lifestyle I would have been sitting there with you now see I think that as well that some people need to go to the dark places to share the light to then guide others out to darkness life's a rollercoaster, it's full of misery it's full of pain but it's also a beautiful thing as well when you can actually show appreciation and gratitude which is difficult but there's people who've been through some nasty shit in this world that are standing stronger than anyone else on this planet you don't wake up and think life is great and it's amazing that it's a constant battle to try and improve it and you're living proof that people can't change all the war wounds and the volatile relationship between you and your mum it shows you that not only you can change but your mum can change and she can also see the world differently oh yeah yeah yeah and you know what my mum is a completely different person to how even she was when I was younger like it's that deep that when I was younger my mum never even allowed people to come into our house that was never a thing you speak to anyone that lives in my area and say to them would you go and knock on her door they'll tell you straight now whereas now my mum's inviting people into the house like no you can come in now look at my mum like you never used to do that you know what I mean and again it's just because over time what she said to us is that the reason why she was like that is because she was very over protective of us so she always wanted to make sure that she had that kind of hold on us you know what I mean but again essentially it made us straight away from the path even more but going back to your friend too yeah I was in my house and then I said you know why are we doing this and he said we're repping the ends repping the ends bro repping the postcode fam we have to bro you get me and I looked at him and I said you're telling me we've done all of this over a postcode even though I knew it was over a postcode anyway but I said to him and he just hit me and I was like you've died over this bro like man have lost man's life for a letter and a few numbers fam and we both looked to each other and he looked to me and he said I've never really thought about it like that and I said fam man are losing man's life over a letter and a few numbers I said you want to know us even more deep my mum don't even own a house in the ends fam so technically I'm fighting for the council because I ain't got no mortgage bro so I'll go on there you get me like so I'm fighting for the council didn't I I ain't fighting for the ends bro and he looked to me we both started laughing and I looked at him and I said you know what fam this is dead and I looked at him and I said I'm going to change man I'm going to change and he looked to me and he started laughing and he was like you ain't going to change I said I ain't going to change he said no way man you're not going to change bro you're hectic B so they used to call me hectic B bro you ain't going to change I said yeah I said seen so they came cool at that time I used to wear all black literally black everything here black everything gloves and that pimpanna clava my shades and that hood up and that and erm I went to H&M the next day I went to H&M and I bought myself a white top and blue jeans and I came out wearing the white top and blue jeans I put my black clothes in the H&M bag and when I walked outside I put the H&M bag in the bin with all my clothes in it put it in the bin and I went to the bus stop waiting to catch the bus back home and this old white lady came walking up to the bus stop so I'm standing there and she comes and she stands right next to me and I'm thinking that's weird cos as you can imagine that never happened to me people were clutching their bags walking past me there weren't standing next to me and erm she started talking to me just random started talking to me so I looked at her and I said are you talking to me? she said yeah I'm talking to you I said oh yeah are you alright she was like yeah yeah I'm alright are you I said yeah I'm good I'm good we had a conversation and then I stopped her and I looked to her and I said if you would have met me 20 minutes ago you would have clutched your bag and walked off and she looked to me and she went why? you seem like a decent young man and if I ever told you it was like bang like instantly I realised I'm not a bad guy I've never been a bad guy and it's crazy because even when man was doing all that stuff people would say to me like Hezron your personality doesn't match the way you look because I was bubbly like how I am now bubbly like yo yo I go on I go on like a thug like I looked aggressive like a mask but if you spoke to me I was the coolest I was cool man I was cool active and I realised and that woman scene passed obviously I wasn't wearing those clothes but it showed me there on the spot that your appearance actually gives off a certain energy and just for the fact that I was wearing a white top and blue jeans that woman felt that she could come and stand next to me and have a conversation with me whereas if I was wearing all black she would have clutched her bag and probably stood there next to some other people that she probably would have felt comfortable with and we had a whole conversation she sat next to me on the bus I caught the bus home now where I lived it took about 40 minutes on the bus she sat with me she was actually getting off at the same stuff that I was funnily enough and she got off the bus look after yourself young man and I hugged her and I said thank you and she said no worries and I said have a good day and she walked her and I went back to my flat and my friend came about 20 minutes later and he came upstairs he came into my yard and he went raw you raw when and did it hez I said yeah fam I told you I was going to do it and he went yeah but I didn't believe he was going to do it though I told you I was going to do it bro I said it's a new me fam new change and then from there I thought how do I actually do this how can I do this how can I prolong this I don't just want to change my clothes and that's it I want to do more than that and I realised at the time I never had an education so I went and redid my education redid my English and maths I done a whole range of different courses and then I got involved with the princes trust I started with theatre programme How long did it take to work on yourself because it's the last day of the process we were working on ourselves until the day we died but how hard was it to come away from your friends who'd been there who used sector as a family who were showing you fake love but how did you manage to come away with that so where I lived I lived away from all of that yeah so the area that I moved to had no form of affiliation to anything so it was a it was a fresh start for me really it was a fresh start for me you know what I just stopped doing I just stopped going to town because town is where the main link up spot was so town was the place where I would go and then link up with all the rest of the man them so I just stopped going to town and then I changed my number so now a man aint got my phone number no more so now I've stopped going to town where the main link up spot is I've stopped going to the parties and all them kind of things and I've changed my number all of a sudden I don't hear nothing because now I'm not seeing them guys anymore out of sight out of mind and I realised well they couldn't tell me anyway because I've changed my number but I realised how like they didn't actually care about me them same brothers that I thought were brothers weren't actually brothers they were just trying to attach themselves in it because again as I said to you we were all in the same boat we were all in that same position broken homes and bad relationships so really we were all just trying to attach ourselves we weren't brothers we weren't it was nothing of the sort we were all just using each other until we found our place but now I found my place so and you want to know when it actually struck me about two years later I went to town and I saw the exact same group of men I used to hang around with but bearing in mind I'm not dressing the same like I was back then I'm walking and I walk through them there's about 20 men standing there you know I walk through them not one man said anything to me until I got out of it and I turned around and I saw one of my bridges and I said yo fam and he looked at me all weird he went he went you blood I said he's me fam he went yo mad yo brof you look different fam like yo wagwa and I looked at him and I said you know what fam hold it safe and I walked off I didn't even hold a conversation and it showed me that again I can walk through them and everyone recognised me so that shows me already me and you ain't bridges if you're my bridging I can recognise you I don't care if you've changed the way you dress I know you I could walk through them man How many of those kids you grew up with you were involved when back in the day I started life or how many are dead and prison that question I couldn't tell you because I haven't kept up to date with it when I left that I completely separated myself from that life I used to get updates man would say because of my bridging who saw me that day when I changed my clothes I was still seeing him all the time because he lived around the corner from my house he was never trying to force me to go back into the gang he was very acceptative of me obviously leaving and whatever and I even tried to make him do it but he was like now my family is too entrenched he's dad's part of the gang he was part of the gang his brother's a part of the gang so he was like when I can't even get out of it like that he's an entrenchment thing for me he's a family thing so I said alright cool well obviously do you support the journey he was like yeah of course bro obviously you do your thing but he always obviously was still rolling with them so he then would give me updates what's going on he would be like did you hear about this or did you hear about that but again a lot of the time I didn't even take it on because to me that was negative energy a negative conversation when I changed the only thing I wanted to hear was positive affirmation it was all about positive affirmation man turned into a Buddhist it was just positive vibes positive vibes positive vibes and that's always what I wanted to hear so all the time when he used to be like yo here's one this man got locked up or did you know a man died or did you know this happened I always used to say to him fam don't want to hear it don't want to hear it don't bring it into my yard I don't want to hear it but I don't want to know about it because I said I just wanted to separate myself I wasn't that person anymore so why am I trying to put myself back into that life and hear about all them things and try and get involved in them things why? I still had a man saying to me like yo yo yo come down let's go lick a yard man let's go lick a yard yo here's one I've got a bit of something if you want to slang it how hard was it that for you to stay in the path at such a young age to come to the realisation that fuck that life I mean at that time when all this had happened when I had done that change I was like 22 so still very young yeah I was like 21 22 but I had matured I had matured from being a 16-17 year old now and I won't lie to you I'll be honest with you the court ting scared me and you know like no man wants to go to prison you get me like no man wants to go to prison I had that 2 years suspended sentence on me in it so what that meant is let's say me and you are chilling and you end up starting to do something and please get called and I'm there I automatically get arrested doesn't matter what's going on I automatically get arrested and go straight to prison and then my actual sentence gets activated plus the 2 years on top the 2 years spending sentence gets activated with it as well so I was like yo I'm not going to prison for no man so I made sure that I just separated myself from everything valued your freedom I valued it differently trust me because as I said I was like I'm not willing to go to prison for these man when I'm trying to change so why am I going to prison for my man because what's going to happen I'm going to go prison for my man but my man is still going to be out here living his life but then I'm going to be in prison for him nah nah no way when my man is out here popping out babies and all sorts of living his best life and that man's up in Dubai and that chilling talking about gang gang and free my brothers and that what are you talking about fam no I'm chilling at my yard I'm chilling in my yard I ain't got time for none of that you get me so as I said I just distanced myself and I just changed my whole mentality because I knew that that is what it needed it wasn't just when I was telling you I had a big big conversation with myself not anybody else I'm talking I'm sat in my yard and my one just me and my own head and I was literally just talking to myself like hezzan you got to change full of conversation I know I got to change and you have to change I had to tell myself again it was that affirmation to myself that actually you need to start doing positive and I knew I could do positive see the women who took you in for the two years was she a positive woman how did you understand that positive if you're such a young age there was something ingrained in you to to waking your soul up to understand that something ain't fucking right again it comes back to what I was saying with I was never a bad guy so when I had done this change I had brought out that side of me that I never showed people that funny jokie, loud like bubbly side whereas I tried to mask that when I was in the gang you get me because again how can you be like that but be a gang member and you're all hyper and bubbly and you can't do that in it so I masked it but when I changed I brought that personality out and when I brought that personality out I realised that again I was a friendly guy I'm a friendly person you can come and have a full on conversation I'll sit there and have a full on conversation with you for hours and I don't have to know yet and I'll just try to instill that into my day to day do you want to know what actually set it in stone for me so when I was doing the get started in theatre program it was at the Birmingham theatre in Birmingham town centre and I said to myself when I started this program I set myself three basic three basic rules and now they're very stupid but at the time they meant a lot to me and it was things that I wanted to do to try and instill that kind of side of me so the first one was I was the first one to arrive that was my first rule I'm going to be the first person to get there in the morning for this course have to be the first person the second one was I'm going to be the last person to leave do you know what I actually used to do or what I actually did we were all being in this room I would actually wait for you all to leave the room then I would pick my bag up and walk out of the room and I had to be the last man out of the room and the third one was I was going to say hello to every single person that I walked past very stupid like I looked like an actual madman I actually looked like an actual madman imagine because people are fucking weird man are weird as well obviously as well I'm black so imagine these men are looking at me like is he alright he's got mental health problems from the moment I stepped into the rep theatre morning morning hello hello morning morning everywhere I went I'm walking around to the point where I never even knew how I was saying hello to that caught the attention of somebody who was quite high up the last day of the program so I've done this for a whole week whole week I was doing this first one there, last one to leave one everybody knew me when I was going in there the last day we had to do a play outside the rep theatre and there was two guys standing there so at the end of this play everyone's receiving their awards for completing the program and one of the guys steps forward he's on brown where are you because I'm the last person to receive my award now I'm thinking what's going on I step forward he goes my name's so and so I'm a scout for the west end so everyone's like shocked you get me and then he goes I want to offer you an acting position in a musical play on the west end in London so I'm like me and he was like yeah when I tell people what you wanted me to play you wanted me to play a donkey and shrek the music you can see it now you can see it now you can see it now you can see it now I'm on the road again come on shrek shrek so he was like I think you're perfect for donkey in shrek the musical like you'll be great for that and I looked to him and I said but I got no acting experience like I don't know what to do and he went yeah and all that's why that guy's standing there so we pointed at the other guy and he stood next to so then that guy stepped forward and he introduced himself and he said um do you actually know who I am do you recognise me and I said nah and he said do you know that you've said hello to me every morning since you started I said nah because again I was just saying hello to everyone and he said I'm actually the directing manager of the Birmingham Rep Theatre and everyone was like what? and he was like he said come to my office next week I want to offer you an opportunity so the next week I went to his office we sat down and top floor in the Birmingham Rep Theatre and I'm in his office and he looked at me and he said right hezran I'm going to send you off to acting school down in London we're going to pay for it we're going to put you through acting school you're going to get your degree and do all this stuff so I was like I'm about to tear up I'm like oh my gosh like thank you and he looks at me and he goes nah I'm only joking I'm only joking I was like why are you going to say something like that to me you get me and build up my build build me up like that you get me and he looked at me and he went because I got one better instead I said what do you mean he said instead I'm just going to make you a paid registered actor here at the Birmingham Rep Theatre and like that he made me a paid actor at the Birmingham Rep Theatre just by saying hello every day just by saying hello every day to random people but again not realising who those random people were this is why I say to young people now be careful with who you're speaking to man because you don't know who you're speaking to that person could change your life today you might just turn around and say oh good morning to that person and that person might turn around and say oh I've got a job for you come you know what I mean and even that's something that I always continue to do now I always continue to say hello to people and be nice to people because you never know who might save your life one day you never know who might implement your life one day and come in and change everything so that's something that I'm always cautious of now but that was the experience that made me think that saying hello every morning to random people ended up getting me a paid well making me a paid registered actor that's amazing man I always try and pay forward as well try to do good deeds I believe the better you become the better you attract I believe everything's frequencies everything's energies if everybody says hello and smiles if everybody just smiles and says good morning instead of looking at phones like I was in London and I'm the same I always try and hello how are you thank you open doors but people it is if you when you say hello to something London it's just a shit in a fucking kettle it's um you're just thinking you're fucking nuts but I think people are scared to interact now I think people are scared to do that so when you've done that then did you play the part as a donkey is that because you were so happy no um I actually didn't end up doing it because what happened is when I started doing the acting I'd done like one or two acting roles and then I realised actually that wasn't really something that I wanted to do acting is a acting is a hard game man like especially as a black man as well there's not a lot of castings there's not a lot of positions that have black cast members so when I was going for like auditions the man's name is like Simon Simon or you know what I mean or like some proper old school country name and it's like the script is written for a white man it wasn't for a black man and when I actually sat down with the guy who got me into that position he told me straight he said acting is still a white man's game it's what he said to me straight up to my face he said acting is still a white man's game unfortunately there is not a lot of there's not a lot of cast or scripts that are written for black characters and even when they are it's all like gang member stuff or like you're like it's all to do with like you're in a gang or you're this very violent person it's nothing like positive so after that conversation I had a conversation with The Prince's Trust and it ended up becoming an ambassador for them and that saw me going around and I was speaking to I was going to like corporate events I was going to garlic dinners and that really changed my perspective because now I've gone from knowing the road life rich people but like legit rich people not people that have brought it out of drugs and have like diamond chains and cars people that was wearing sandals and shorts but they're billionaires and I'm chilling with them you know what I mean and I started to see a different kind of perspective I'm starting to speak to business minded people and I started to realise like raw this you might have out here doing it legit in your sandals bro like you might have in your sandals and shorts run in the show like that and I was like and it changed that perspective for me you get me so then from there I thought to myself that ambassador role was only for one year and after that one year I stopped having communication with The Prince's Trust and then I thought to myself why am I actually out here talking to corporate bosses and celebrities I thought the real people that I need to speak to are young people in it they're the people that can relate to me so I ended up going to a school just this random school I had a relationship with the teacher there and I said do you mind me coming into the school and doing one of my talks telling my life story and she was like yeah it's like coming one day I just did it for free because I've never done it before didn't know what the kind of reaction was going to be and I went in I gave the talk and when I'm saying that they ended the talk the whole year group stood up and came to the front and all the teachers didn't know what to do because all just came to the front and I was like oh everyone calm down I had to make them queue up make a line and they all came up to me like yo sir that was mad you know like yo sir I'm going for the exact same thing and I got a bad relationship with my mom and I've got this anger problem I don't know how to control and I'm in an emergency accommodation now and I'm like I started to see that a lot of the young people had similar attributes to me and were going through similar things and I thought to myself yeah I can help them so I ended up setting up my own company more talk more action and then for about I would say for 5 years I was going across the country for free just going into schools doing my talk speaking to people trying to build up my name to be fair I wasn't even trying to build up my name at that point I was just trying to share my story you were still being fairly before yourself building up your confidence building up my confidence building me up as a person again getting some of that trauma off my chest being able to talk about it with people but in the same process trying to help the young people as well and then I got a phone call from the princes trust because they had heard about what I was doing and all the work that I had done and they asked me to go to Scotland what do you want me to go to Scotland for and they were like oh we just want to do a a story on you and the work that you've done so I said alright cool and they were like you know we want to bring it out of that urban looking place and we want to kind of bring it into a more like countryside setting a more professional setting because that's kind of how you are now as a person you're not that urban person anymore you're more of a professional so I said yeah that's fine and then when I was up in Scotland there was a film crew and all that I was thinking oh it is man it is man so we're walking around we're taking pictures doing this little mini film and then they said to me that I had to do a talk with a journalist that was like the end of the day so I'm like alright yeah cool so I go and sit in this room and this room was mad posh some big mad chairs and I'm just like yo this is mad posh for like a journalist still and I looked to the guy and I said this person that's coming in because this is posh and the guy was like oh it's they're quite a famous journalist so obviously that's why we had to put it in this space I said okay cool cool I'm sitting down and then the guy looks at me and he goes I think you should stand up you know I said why he went just stand up trust me so I said okay and then when I stood up Prince Charles walked for the door and he walked in and I was like I was like like kind of just like set back kind of thinking like what you get me like what's going on and then he comes up to me and he says do you know why you're here I said that he said you're here because you've won the Pride of Britain award and I just broke down man I was just crying crying even now I was talking about it I was just crying man I was barling my man was rubbing my back you know bruv Prince Charles rubbing my back man was rubbing my back but I'm not lying to you Prince Charles rubbing my back my man was like it's alright I'm there like mama's there he looked at the camera man he went turn off the camera and the camera man turned off the camera again you don't see all this on the video because obviously they edited it up and whatever so I'm crying hunched over and he says ah stand up man stand up straight and I stood up and I'm crying I'm like and he looked at me and he put his hand on me and he said I just want to say I'm proud of you from the man that you was to the man that you are now he said I'm proud of you different kind of thing from different I can't even talk about it it just wells me up different kind of thing you get me because to have that kind of acknowledgement you know what I mean a man look at you and say I'm proud of what you've achieved but I sat in that chair barling my eyes out man my eyes were red I was barling and I just had to look at him and I thanked him for creating the prince's trust and obviously what they do for young people and whatever and initially putting me on that platform with the rep theatre because essentially that's what got me in with the ambassador work and then that's what made me realise that I wanted to do more and I just thanked him for starting that journey for me even though he never did it but I just thanked him for creating the prince's trust and then I ended up going to the I remember I came out I was phoning everybody bearing in mind they're telling me I can't tell no one that I've won the Pride of Britain award I'm phoning everybody everybody I won the Pride of Britain you know fam I've won the Pride of Britain I only told the select people people that were actually there on my side and I went to the Pride of Britain awards mad mad night and I ended up winning the trophy there phenomenal brother from being a kid who was homeless a lot of anger issues possibly could have done life in prison possibly could have been dead to then pushing the boundaries to try to be happy and forcing yourself to say hello and being happy and changing your pathways in your brain to never quitting, to never giving up first of all I'm fucking proud of you I'm proud of you because it goes to show that people can change and that's the beautiful thing about life no matter what age you are no matter if you're 18 or 88 people can make changes no matter how fucked up you think your life is you can always better your life and you're living proof of that people will watch this and take inspiration I know your brothers are here as well we'll take inspiration it's phenomenal brother this is what it's all about podcasting that for this stuff this moment to show people that fuck me man the man's just won Pride of Britain now man standing on stage your mum must be proud because I must have been a realisation she must have thought at some points that she'd lost you the darkness had took you to then fight through that and come out there with rainbows and fucking butterflies and it's not always going to be easy it's not always going to be easy when you were on the stage and what was going through your mind then were you thinking fuck me is this real 100% I was standing there thinking how does a man like me be in a place like this how like how and normally there will be a lot of people that will turn around and be like he should be in prison or he deserves to go to prison he shouldn't be there he shouldn't have that award he shouldn't be doing that but they don't see the background work that I do they just see the face of it so they probably see the pictures and then they think they don't see the hard work that I had to put in to get something like that there was real I'm talking I'm waking up 4 o'clock in the morning I'm waking up I remember I went 2 o'clock in the morning I had to wake up because I was going down to Wales I had to catch train and all sorts and I'm checking down there for free out of my own money to go and speak in a school to talk to young people because I was that passionate about speaking to the young people I won't lie even from the prize of Britain award this whole journey for me has just been it's been mind blowing because again as I said to you how does a man like me a man that went through the things that I went through there's a lot of man that have been through half of the things that I've been through in mental institutes literally banging their heads off walls you know what I mean but one thing I've always just tried to do and one thing I always say to the young people just keep swimming man it's from when I first watched Finding Nemo I never forget the first time I watched Finding Nemo and Dory was turning around saying just keep swimming and it stuck in my head and I was like you know what that's all that man have to do you just have to keep swimming because life will always hit you with hurdles it will hit you with tragedy it will hit you with cruelty but it's how you act yourself it's how you move forward with that because how you move forward with that determines what kind of person you are you have to get right in your own mind you have to sit down with yourself and be like actually you know what I need to make a change I need to make a difference I need to be strong don't get me wrong it's not always easy even people now think oh my man so strong it's so strong headed there's been times I've broken down there's been times I've been curled up in a ball on the floor crying my eyes out and I've questioned everything I've questioned my being I tried to kill myself when I was younger literally tried to kill myself when I was younger and even that I say to young people I say imagine if I actually succeeded and I actually killed myself I wouldn't be here now the person that I am How much has this changed your life when in this award? I'm sitting here with you That's true man I've barely played that bro You don't like that I've sat here with you Since winning the award you know what's been the maddest thing talking to people that would never have spoken to me before yeah on a legit one let's be real let's be real I've spoken to people that would have never even looked at my message never mind responded to my message you know what I mean but I know that a lot of it comes through the pride of Britain but listen I'm cool with that because at the end of the day if that is giving me a platform to share my story even more then I'll use that because at the end of the day that's my only mission my only mission is to share my story as much as possible as you said to show people that you know what you don't have to quit you don't have to give up you don't have to admit persevering and you will come out the other side you will come out the other side better stronger and what I always say to people is that you go through that the one time you know how to deal with it the second time don't you because the first time you went through it it was a struggle it was hard you had to learn how to adapt and how to take it on board and deal with it the second time it happens to you I know what to do I know what indoors man I was just about riding away going forward for a future brother what are your plans? the plans is to grow the company as much as possible we want to be extending even more out into the country so working with more schools more young people getting more contracts and you know just trying to build the name of more talk more action because at the end of the day and I said that's what it's about man I'm trying to impact these young people's lives whether that's mentoring whether that's lived experience talks whether that's skills sessions whatever it is that we can provide I want to make sure that we've got that implemented in the schools, colleges, universities because one thing I've always said is everybody needs a mentor everyone needs a mentor man everyone needs someone to talk to you might sit there and think ah now I don't need no one to talk to you but you'll find that at the moment you start talking to someone and you feel comfortable talking to them on your mind, off your mind all those things that's on your chest, off your chest a lot of these young people especially in these times they've got a lot of pressures man they've got a lot of pressures from a lot of different things you know what I mean like these young people are watching music videos they're seeing other friends doing well we live in a generation where everything's done online I'm seeing like little 12, 13 year olds with like 100,000 followers and I'm like how are you you like 12 bro you like 12 you know what I mean but they're famous and I'm like and the young people see that and they're like I need to be that famous if they can do it and they're 12 I can do it and they think to themselves that they have to be the certain way instead of just growing up normally and growing up in a way that they can learn for themselves what kind of person they are and that's the reason why we do a lot of mentoring in the schools because we want them to we want to bring out who they are and the person and who they want that creative side but also who they want to be a lot of these young people don't know who they want to be what they want to become and we try and help them know what they want to be and know how they want to be and know what they want to become everybody's got a gift man it's scary and I believe needs to change my opinion there's a few things that need to be put in place for kids to understand life money management we talk about death we don't can't handle it well we just end up fucking spiralling but for anybody watching brother it's going through a struggle it's maybe on gang life or maybe suicidal, full of anger what advice would you give for them just keep swimming yeah don't quit just keep swimming don't quit young people that are involved in that gang life and things like that if you can get out of it then get out of it if you're struggling and you can't try and seek help try and find a service something in your local area someone that you can trust, that you can speak to and try and remove yourself from that situation it's quite hard because I've spoken to young people that have turned around to me and said I want to get out of the gang but I can't because my family's doing it my mum's doing it, my dad's doing it my cousins are doing it what do you say to a young person in that situation it's difficult, you can sit here all day and say seek the help man, seek the help go and find someone you can talk to but ultimately that's where they live, that's their support that's their network so whenever they go back to that that's always what they're going to see they're always going to see the gang so what do you say to a young person like that I think the only thing you can do is work with that young person and make that young person believe that's what's important making them believe that they don't have to fit that stereotype or they don't have to fit in with the rest of the family they can be bigger than that they can be more than that show them that you can be different why don't you be the example why don't you lead the herd don't be the sheep be the shepherd show them that actually look we can do greatness I always say to people you can do greatness, everyone's got greatness everyone can do greatness in this world but you just have to do it but people don't do it they just keep it inside and they're like no no I'll do it tomorrow I'll do it next year I'll do it whenever I can listen you do it now and the same with these young people do it now so what I would just say to these young people is keep swimming and try and be who you want to be like don't fit in with the stereotype just be who you want to be be you be you and just don't fit into the stereotype don't fit into the stereotype again don't try and live up to society don't try and live up to society just be you and be yourself for coming on today and telling your story you're a true inspiration for what you're doing a lot of people will get inspiration from your story now and it shows that people can make changes can't wait to see what the rest of you do for the future but for coming on today and telling your story it's been amazing thank you so much check out more of my podcasts on the right and be sure to like share and comment your thoughts on this weeks podcast thank you