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So for me to think he wouldn't say it about me was a bit naive. I got Nick in 94 from a lorry load of four. They found off a ton of cannabis on a lorry and me and my mate got Nick for that. They're on me about a mile and a half chasing me. I've got the gun down my waist. What am I going to do with this gun? Did he die of AIDS because when I come out of prison in 83 my intent was to kill him. And the first thing I'd done I went round to someone and I said where does he f***ing live now? Being getting followed by these Eastern Europeans I'd done them what they f***ing have to do if they're not even going to wrap me up. Even though he's shot, yeah it's turned your leg upside down at that moment and f***ing so I say don't move. Shit that's been said to you. If he ran you up right now and says I'm sorry what would you do? That would do. That would do. Sometimes the man you take a bullet for ends up being the one behind the gun. I've been behind in today's guest with big Paul Taylor out Paul. Hello mate. How are you my brother? Good mate. Nice to see you. Nice to see you again. First time I've done an interview what three years ago now? Three years yeah. How's the response been? I was surprised at the amount of views it got. Even though that weren't my motive but the amount of people that reached out to me afterwards and saying to me Paul where's your red hat? No one thinks that of you. He says that about everybody. So take no notice. No one else has took notice and it gave me a good. It made me feel better about myself. It made me believe Paul. No one does believe it but my ego wouldn't believe it. My ego wouldn't let it go. But it was a good. I think I made a good decision doing that with you last time. Because I know you were sceptical. It's no secret listen Pat Adams shot you. Ended up in prison you too. He's my best friends. You kind of felt let down by it. He's been calling your names before or after it. It's escalated but let's say time goes on and how have you been dealing with it all now? The 10 years of it has been like a life sentence. Because I've tried to work out how things got that bad. How could things deteriorate that quick? One minute I'm 50. We're at my birthday with all right. Everything's fine and within three months. As I said before I'm a smack dealer. I'm an informer. I'm a grass. I'm all these things that he knows of any man on this planet but not true. And for him to take any notes of it I couldn't accept that. I couldn't comprehend that you would even use these words to describe a man that's been there for you for 25 years and never let you down. All your son. All your family to be honest. How did it get so messy then? As I said before I think it was. I think a lot of it was that I said to do his son. His son was more. How can I say it? He was younger when I first I looked after his son. I protected his son. I looked out in my these back at every turn. I think we're back where we are and I was looking after his son. It's a little bit of not jealousy is the wrong word. But I suppose the me and the boy got too close. But then when certain things started to evolve which I won't go into detail. When certain things started to come out that weren't true. And I went and dug and found out the truth. His son's got two options. Who's he scared of the most? It's going to be his dad. And his dad's going to believe his son. But the bit that this that did surprise me. When I went and put the note on his door. I put the note on his door for one reason. He wouldn't come and see me. He kept promising. Let's sort this out. Let's sort this bollocks out. And he didn't. So I put the note on his door saying like this is a year before this even happened. Saying ask your son to tell the truth. I didn't even say that. I said ask G to tell the truth. I thought he would have come to me with his boy and had it out on the table. Who's telling the truth here? I just didn't get to say. But I kept the note for another year. Which brought the word grass into the case. I used the word grass originally on the letter. And the only reason it got used is because that's what was quoted in court. Which I've actually created that problem myself. And the newspaper's destroyed it. But it's just so I find it very sad. Because I put the man on a pedestal. And as I said, it absolutely broke me. But I fought through it. It's been hard. I've had support from quite a few people. I didn't used to listen to them. Because my head was gone. But now I've had a ferret beat. I've learned to distinguish situations. It's like I've been a grieving process. That's what it's been. But I don't want to demean the word grieving for people who have lost family members. And things like that. Because I've seen what that does to people. And a broken heart. It felt like that. But now I've unraveled it. I've addressed a lot of my own issues. Needing to be part of people. Needing to be part of something. And I'm in the best place I've been probably in my life. I never thought I'd be happy again. But I am. Yeah, that's amazing. Because I remember when I first had you on, you were quite nervous. You kept touching your throat. You were unsure whether to do that interview or not. But you had so much questions. You had so many, you wanted answers as well. So many things hanging over your head. It was like a dark cloud of just fucking pain. You were in trying to do the right thing. Being called a grass. You've been in and out of prison. You would die for certain people. And then to be getting through under the bus. And then shot as well. That's a lot to fucking deal with. How's ferret been for you? How was it actually going to ferret being speaking for the first time? It was a relief. Because I could be open. Could you trust them? Because I've been to ferret being a drug artist. I've had few ferrets missing in the past. So when I was dealing with the drugs and getting over the drug situation. But this time I just thought I'm not going to give them no gory details about anything. I'm giving them the gist of that. I want to know why did I nail my flag to his mask? You know what I mean? What was so... And it all unraveled that it was low self-esteem. No confidence. Low self-worth. And when someone does something for you. I realized, listen, I never had... I didn't have no money. I didn't have nothing. I had me hammering my neck. I'd done my own business. And give me an opportunity one day. And he'd give me something. And what he'd give me. I didn't feel that I was worth that for what I'd done. And I found it very hard to accept. And I just... I didn't want it. I took it and put it somewhere and left it there for ages and ages. And that happened a couple of times. And the only way I could feel that I had to repay him, or I didn't have to repay him, but I felt that I had to repay him with my lawyer. And when he was on the out... His son was here for 15 years on his own. I look after his son. So I never felt worth it. But this woman explained it to me. She went, look, this is just from your childhood. This is how you've been brought up. You never had no confidence. You never had no self-worth. So you never thought you was any good. I bit, listen, James, I didn't talk about it last time, but I'm back to talk about these things with her. And I've got no... I carried a lot of shame around with me for years. I won't going to mention it today, but I'm an open book and I'll throw on the table. I got messed about with when I was seven. Never told anyone till I was 46. And that was in a re-app. Right, come out a bit. And then it happened again when I was 14. And that one, I held on to. And it was so odd because there was three other people in the room at the time when it happened. And I froze. I literally froze. I couldn't shout. I couldn't say anything because I was seven again. It was a seven-year-old being attempted to be molested again. And but now I'm 14. And it just, it crucified me. So these are all things that was buried deep in me that have now come out. And when I come out of the Ospell, I called my two... Our class is probably my best friends at the time from school. And I called them around and I told them. I said, look, I've got something to tell you. And I'm waiting for this. I don't know what I'm waiting for. But when I told them, they went, yeah, it was always a dodgy fucking man, wasn't he? I couldn't even say it. There was no criticism. There was no, how about it in your scream? They just... And so all them years I went to that nonsense. It's for nothing. I could have let that go. But yeah, it was... The therapy has been an help. It's been a big help. Yeah, I just want to say a proud of you for that. That's not easy. I've been speaking about him so frequently, but Jeff Thompson, he's an eighth man. Absolute killer. Fucking killer. I had him on the podcast. Abused by his instructor when he was 11, 12. And this man just fuelled himself with absolute hate and vengeance and rage. He called it the parasite. The parasite just grew bigger and bigger and bigger because he never spoke about it. And I've had enough survivors on, it takes years and years and years, but it eats away at them. And it's so hard for people to come forward. But Jeff ended up seeing his abuser in a... Like a cafe. Many years later, now he's an eighth man. He always visualized killing him. Obviously he's got older to try to be calm. And he was a bouncer and an absolute killer. Then he learned how to master it. But he's seen this man in a cafe. He's abuser. Eighth man. Seen him. What did he do? Throws. Didn't know what to do. He seemed... He went back to being 11, 12. He rolled again and froze. And he didn't know what to do. His head just went. So it doesn't matter who you are. You could be the biggest killer on the planet or the nicest and soft person on the planet. There's... Everybody reacts to trauma differently. And his prime example doesn't matter who you are. Everybody's still got that number. But what he did, he did approach the guy and says to him what he'd done. The man broke down. And then Jeff feels as if he got his power back. So you've been speaking to the therapist. You've then got your power back. That's strength. Look at that. That's strength. I hear these stories so frequently. My job is... I used to interview gangsters. Everybody knew that. Then you start interviewing one person and they're exposing certain things. Then other people come forward. These other people's strength is so that. Doing certain stories. But my job now is to try and shed light on the things that no deals goes to. So for you even doing that. Now three years what we've been very good contact. We've always praising each other. We're always... The odd phone call. We've always been there the last three years. And obviously there's something about yourself or where you can see the honesty. You can also see the vulnerability. And going through those stages in life as well then. There's going to be that element of control. So he's had your control with the power. Not just the abuser but your friend basically. And that's where you... Because you're wanting that love and attention. How was it speaking about it to the therapist for the first time? What the abuse thing? Yeah. It was a relief. It was really a relief. It was like... Because I said I've spoke to my... I spoke to my friends. I spoke about the first time I met them. I spoke to about it in the rehab. But not... The one I found the one that affected me the most was when I was 14. That seemed to affect me. But I think because I felt I should have... I should have screamed. I should have fought. I should have done something. Never. But once I explained it, she went, Yeah, but the trauma is took you straight back to when you was a kid and it happened. And it's exactly what did happen. And I've even unraveled a little bit. A lot of people, you know what I mean? Once I'm out with you, when you have a cuddle, you go stiff. But now you fucking know. Because it's an intimate... It's an intimate thing. I still find it hard to cuddle my own kids. That's really sad. That's really sad for them and for me. I find it very uncomfortable. And they go, it's like that. We know. And I love them. But I just don't have that. This is one thing I've still not got round. I don't know why. But that takes time. Remember all the shit that you've been through. I'm 61. I know, but you're only just coming to acceptance of your life. Everything you've been through. The abuse, prisons, being shot, being called certain things. This is you only coming. This is all coming to our head where it becomes a release. Three years ago, I believe it was a start of a new chapter for you. A new journey and going, wait a minute. People do actually like me. People don't actually think that. Because when you know when people throw mud, it's horrible sometimes. Sometimes as men, we've got to defend. We've got to fucking start listening. Anybody ever came forward to me, I don't give a fuck who they are. I would always step forward. And that's not the act of that. That's always been the case from who I've been. I always respect people. I always show respect. I always give love if people see me in the street. They will always, I'll always show them a smile and go, how you doing? I'll always give the time of day and talk. Oh, it's always been. But when people try and tarnish our name and people, if people are bold enough to tarnish our name, you've got to be bold enough to fight for it. So when you're going through all that, that's just a big negative bubble. And then when it actually pops, everything starts coming to the surface where you start realizing who you were, what you've done because you've been no saint either. You've done a lot of bad shit as well. So it's going to affect you. And we'll always be dealing with trauma to the day we die. As soon as you first feel that hard bit of trauma, it always stays there. Even if I'm having a good day, something will pop out in my mind and go, remember you done this. Remember your question over this or whatever. Then it brings back negative thoughts. And you think, maybe I shouldn't be happy. But we can be happy. We can change. Flip the chapter. We can move on. We can be good people. We are good people anyway. But we can create a better future. And always promote that shit. Don't worry about your past. Let's create a better day and a better future. But it takes time. Do you still feel as if you're reliving a lot of negatives in your life? Yeah. Listen the most. Take your pukes thing aside. For me, and it will be because he was a big part of my life. My being was being there for him. He was my purpose. I don't sound strange, but he was my purpose. That was what I dedicated my life to. Being a good friend. Being a loyal friend. And just being a proper stand-up man. He weren't here. Someone had to defend the name on his behalf. And I took that man at one. That's not me. I've done that. And I'm proud that I've done that. And I'll always be proud I've done it. And whatever mud, whatever lies they throw, they know it's bollocks. Because when they look in that mirror, they go, he was a fucking staunch man. He never ever said no. And I always deliver, mate. Always. Whatever energy it takes out of me. It sucks the life out of me, so and so. But I see it through. And I did do it. It would have been like that until the day we died, one of us. The one thing I never dreamed happening happened. Listen. There was always the opportunity. There was always the word. Always the possibility of him calling me an informer. Because I've heard him say it so many times about people. So for me to think he wouldn't say it about me was a bit naive. Because you fall out with people, you have a thing, and off the cuff remark, and you say it. But I don't hate him. I've got no resentment towards him no more. Sadness that things got to that point that didn't need to get to that point. But I've also got a lot of pride that as a man, I fucking stood up unlike most people and confronted it like a fucking man. Because that's what I am. I'm a warrior. I don't roll over for no one. And I stood tall. I come unstuck. I went for a fight and come unstuck. Simple as that. I didn't go for a fight. I went to have a conversation which evolved into what happened. But you know what? It's done. It's sad, but it's done. I've got no animosity to him, his boy. So it is. And they can't. They can't. No one can take that from me. No one. Because there's not a man on this planet could step forward and go, no. Or no, it's true. Because it ain't, and it can't be. There ain't. There's not one. There's not a man on this planet can say that about me. They can say it, but it won't be true. Has he ever came forward on messages after your podcast went out? No, no. That's all. Listen, James, I'll sit here before you. All I wanted was the right to reply. I think, if ever you say the things that's meant to have been said, well, what's said about me and my family, I think every man's got a right to have their say and defend theirself. Any man, I don't give a fuck who you are. And that's what hurt me the most about the case. It was the fact that he robbed me of an opportunity to go a cult. If he'd have called me as a witness, which was what all I hoped for. Because that's what I pulled my energy into going to a cult. I had my story set up. I had everything in place. The man would have walked. He would have walked out of a cult. And I'd say, why? That judge, if he doubted anything, he would have asked for a new hearing. Right? He didn't ask for a new hearing, except what was said. So if I'd have gone to a cult, I'm the only witness. I had people coming. I'm shopping myself here, but I'm only shopping myself. He didn't know about this because the messages never used to get through to him. That's the issue. I had someone going to say, a man made a statement. Didn't make a terrible, tarnished, got grasped off. That's all he said was Paul was going to make someone in his life. He shouldn't have done it, but he did. It's not a drama, but people will make a drama of it because he was my mate. I said, what you need to say is this. When I left you, I knew I had a gun on me. He went, I said, that's all you got to say. So he's up for it. He's up for being called as a witness. There was another witness that I spoke to, and they was willing to come and call and say, Paul asked me to get him a gun. He was willing to say that. He ended up losing all his business and everything because when it was said that I was trying to buy a gun, the police went to him and took his business off him, destroyed him. He not took his business, but told his people he works for and they took all his livelihood from him. But I had everything in place. Let me get in call. If you don't want to see me face to face, call me in call. Let me go in call. Now you've got an opportunity to prove I'm an informer. You can challenge me. You can do whatever you've got. I can purge myself, which means they're going to expose me. That's all I wanted, and I felt so robbed. I felt absolutely robbed. It took all the wind out of myself, because I put my energy into that, getting into a call. Listen, two people have tried to help. Two people, me and one of his brothers, who I've got utmost respect for. And I'll be honest with you, Bar, he's the only one who gave me time of day, and he did give me the time of day. And he probably doesn't even realise the respect I've got for that man. And he's side of the family. So you're only, for many times, you've been in prison, Paul? Four times. First time was the... Well, I didn't go into full detail. I got two years for the robbery, which I didn't discuss. I got nicked outside, snatched in a bag of a geezer going in a bank. I got two years for a robbery, two years for each stabbing. So that's four years. That was the first time I served. Three years of the four years, which was when I first met Pat. That was a learning curve for me. How so? I come from a YP prison. I was in Ashford. I was in Lewis. And then I went to Colt. I was 20. And I got sentenced and got sent to Wandsworth. And I remember walking into Wandsworth, this bouncy kid who's just come from a YP. And I'm in this reception area, and I've gone into a jeep wing, and it looks like... I'm waiting for Oliver Twist. To come walking out. That's how old and decrepit it was. I'm all like, you've never seen nothing like it. It was rotten. And they put me in the cell, just put me straight in the cell. And I remember sitting there thinking, oh, well, big boy, this is what you wanted. This is what you've got. I didn't come out of the cell for two days. I didn't eat. I just stood here the door open, and the noise was like a mad ass. And I put me in there, and it was just all people running around with buckets of piss and buckets of shit. And I just shut the door. And then eventually, I just thought, Paul, you've got to fucking, you've got to get on with this. What's the advice? Get in there, have a tear up, just fucking livin' someone up. And I remember going to the op plate, carried up, and took the opportunity to just start a fight. Start a fight. That was it. And then we're saying, oh, youngster, what are you doing? And down the block, up out of the block, everyone accepts me. And then it was easy running. Nothing. It was easy. Simple. Second time, I got out in 86, I think. Yeah, about 86, I come out. And what was the Nick for then? 86. I got Nick in 94, from a lorry load of what they found off a ton of cannabis on a lorry. And me and my mate got Nick's for that. Got to not get weak. So we was on Remarkery a year. A few funny things happened there. But that's done. Got out on Remarkery. Got out of Remarkery in 80s, 90s. That was 94, 95. We got out. I got Nick to get in 2000 and 98. Sorry, 98 for a gun in a car, which was a fucking mad, mad case. Come at me ass. I mean, I've arranged for someone to drop one off to me. So I leave my ass, me and my wife. I see an AA van. So I thought, I don't like to look at that. As we drove out, I've seen them. They're on me about a mile and a half chasing me. I've got the gun down my waist. What am I going to do with this gun? I'm going around calling as I can front out. No, before I can. Anyway, long story short, get out of the car, front of the seat. I got Nick's. Me and my wife, both charged. She gets bow, I get reminded. So, um, yeah, got a bellmarsh. Probably the, I went into the scrubs in the bellmarsh. First night in bellmarsh. Ass block, ass block four, which is the catty block. I go over there, walk on, someone invites me on. I walk on the landing. And it's, I felt an uneasy presence on there. And I remember looking around me thinking, this doesn't feel comfortable. This really doesn't feel comfortable. Something's not right. Anyway, someone went and put their arm in my shoulder. He went, all right, mate, walking up. So I'm walking on. I went, what's this guy's a woman? He went, are you a poble? So I said, yeah. He went, you was the one who had a gun, my old woman. And I went, I don't know what you're talking about, mate. And that's the turn of the way he mentioned the name Wayne. Right. And I remembered what he was talking about. His wife was in Seoul. Him ratting Wayne off when Wayne was ill. I in Seoul were doing, instead of you fucking, you got, you keep your mouth shut, right? And I thought he's going to throw, so I flung a punch at him. He put me over, he's hit me on the chin. He's a boxer, Xbox, a Charlie Tozer. Another fucking poor man who took his own life in prison. He put me over the table. It felt like the old world was attacking me, but where I'm kicking and kicking off, it was just, it looked like a trap. But I've seen it's found out it won. And it took me 20 years to bump into Charlie again. He was having to meet me some and I bumped into him. I come up behind him, I'm with Charlie. He went, hello, Poé. He was oblivious why I was there. I went, so how do you want to do it? He went, about what? He went, oh, you ain't talking about Belmont. I said, fuck me, cool, Simon. I want to know, like, and we've got into it. To be honest with you, at the end of the conversation, I'll give him 500 a pound because he just come up and he went on his way. I'm getting it up quite good friends with Charlie. But, yeah, that was 2000 and, sorry, again, 98. So long story short, I got a call. Plead, get away. Before I got a call, I've got to watch a Cartier, Santa, remember the ones with the screws? Yeah. And there was a two-boy in there. He was on this. He was nicked on that Michael, Michael's case. So I'm walking around every day. You can let me have your watch. He drove me mad. He's joking. So the day before I'm going to call, he went, you're a cook, you're a sausageer. He went, what'd you write? And I went, I don't know, four. He went, at that time, a three years was an average for a sentence for a gun. Ain't like now, it's five years automatically. Three years was an average. Everyone was saying, you're going to get a three, you're going to get a three. He went, you'll get a three for that. So I went in, if I get a three, you can have my watch. So he laughed. I've got a cold sitting in the cold. I ended up with two and a half years, right? Straight away, I thought, two and a half years, don't do this to me. Give me a three. Give me a four. Don't give me two and a half years. I felt wrong. And in our world, you can't get a touch. If you get a touch. You're like an ass. How do you get a touch? What's gone on? For six months, I'm going to be a rat for six months. But this is how I feel yet again. Low self esteem, low self worth, self imploding on myself. Ah, people's going to think now, mate. So I get back to the prison, go and see the governor next morning. I said, I want to hand this in to someone. So when you're being bullied. So I said, no, I'm not being bullied. So I told him the bloke was. And they give him the sentence. I'm sorry, but I don't believe it. Because people don't stick to their word. People don't keep their word. I keep my fucking word. And there's a man I had to give him a watch. He had it in the system. It was in the system running around for about three years. My mate ends up in the prison with him. Gets a story. He sells the watch to my mate. My mate hands it back out to me. And then my mate sends me a message. You got anyone got a watch on him? Gets an old watch. I said, I tell what I do. I send you the watch in. And there's a story behind it. But he's got a good history that watch because he's got a blinding little story behind it. But yeah. So that's what I've got for that two and a half years. Went to Camp Hill. When was the other one? Camp Hill. Oh, then I got nick for the the ever in and the guns. Which was absolutely complete bollocks. And that was that's my that's my bird, I think. See when you're in prison, Paul, see obviously with the stuff you went through as a kid at seven and fourteen. They become very protective of being round. Invade him in. No, I didn't. Why? Because that was just buried. That was all buried deep. That only come out in, as I said, when I was about 46, 47, the first bit. And the last bit when I was 14 that come out in. 2013, 14 when I got my mates from when I come out of hospital. So that didn't. You don't think about it. There's a funny there's a funny time that happened with Pat. He might remember this. He might not. They come around my ass one Christmas. And it was the Christmas before we fell out. And he went. We were sitting in the front room. We come around to see the baby because we thought we had a baby. And he went. Paul, whatever happened to and he cracked the geese's name. Right. He went, whatever happened to his brother. He was like, I need people. Whatever happened to him. And this is the geese that. Right. And I went. How does he know? I think he's being spiteful, but he just happened to fright. I froze. I didn't know what to say. I just went. Oh, I think he died and he did. He died of age because when I come out of prison in 83, my intent was to kill him. And the first thing I've done. I went around to someone else and said, where did he fucking live now? Who died of AIDS? Robbed. Robbed. So it just never got spoke about. No, it never affected me in that way. Not that I'm aware of. Well, you could have been in for a murder. So when you say Robbed, it's not, it's been a fucking blessing. Yeah, but I did feel Robbed. I felt Robbed. Did you want a torture account? I just wanted to get, I just wanted to just have some sort of retribution room. He needed to suffer. He needed to suffer for what you've put me through. That one little incident, fucked my whole life up emotionally. It ruined me. And I couldn't ever, I couldn't even tell no one about it. Couldn't tell no one. Because I was scared of the reaction. What would people say would they love? So every time someone mentioned something like that, cringe. It's like when anyone used to mention crack. And Pat would go, that fucking low life, crack it. I'd die. Because I'm on the crack. He don't know. And if any insult about something like that, I felt it. But as I say again, that ain't him doing nothing wrong. That's me. Most of it is me. It's all internal. Yeah. It's all internal. I'm a very complex, very sensitive person. Really sensitive. People don't know it. There's a couple of people know me who go, but only because they're addicts. But you tend to see every bad man, every criminal, every gangster, there's always the connection of being bullied or abused when they're younger. It's there. It's there. So when people say, I always say this as well, but that's been a question they ever get scared. So of course I don't because I see vulnerability actually see good and these people who have done wrong. But if you actually listen to their story, you'll see that our life has been full of tragedy and trauma and torment where all the anger and frustration just becomes that defense of they don't want to be feel pain anymore. So they're acting to it, to hurt other people. So they don't get hurt anymore because their whole life has been full of fucking torment. And a lot of people's lives have been ruined because that's a life sentence. That's why when abusers they should be getting fucking hung. That's why I always say, bring back the death penalty because these people deserve to die because the people who get abused it's a life sentence. Sometimes I'm here for them that they have to fucking relive the moments unless you deal with it. There's not a lot of people deal with it. There's a man in your caliber. There's probably so many others like yourself who variate. Listen, they don't want to be caught. Yeah. And that's the hard thing. But when guys like yourself speak come forward, you'll be surprised that other people go, fuck me, I'll resonate with that. Even when I had Marvin here, but on shot, staunch as fuck, would do anything for anybody. And he was dying in the hospital. Nobody came to visit him. And I had a lot of empathy for Marvin with that. Once that, once that come on, I'll say I knew that feeling because I had that feeling. I only had an handful of people come to see me. Most of them was family and a couple of friends who, as I've said before, who was there and when I woke up and one, this one person, I remember him leaning over me and he put his head on my head. And I just felt this, this, I felt a tear fall out of me. And it was such an emotional thing. And I was telling this someone the other week, sitting there talking to someone, a bit of tired with someone. And I was telling him the story. And it absolutely, I nearly started crying because I felt how I felt when it happened. So I felt that closeness to this man. And he's, he's, um, yes, there's so much people don't know about me, friends. I don't, I don't think that though. I think people know I was always out there trying to prove myself and trying to get myself a reputation and trying to be, be loved. I never felt loved as a kid. Never loved myself. So how can anyone else love me? That's how you feel. Well, we've been like it. Yeah, that's the hard thing. Because I know I always used to say that you can't love anybody until you love yourself. But then as times went on as well, I realized that that's not actually the truth because if somebody can come into your life and show you enough love where you start accepting their love, I think it's all we do with acceptance because if I used to get a gift, I didn't, I get embarrassed. I'm a giver. I will always say to people, please, everybody gets. I'll cut about in Glasgow, be fucking holes in my shorts with a dog biting it, holes in my jumper. But all my kids and people love ones. I'll do everything for them. You'll have the best. Me, I don't give a fuck. Don't give me anything. Please. And at the Christmas season, but if these are getting embarrassed, my sister, everybody, the missies, I'll get Christmas presents. I'll don't open them. Tony enough before the new year. What is that about? I don't know. I just, it's just, I don't know. It's always, I'm not so much now we're trying to get approval because I know what I'm doing is right. I know I have made changes. You'll get people from there. I agree with them. They'll throw little digs and I'm thinking, shut up, be a fucking prick. You don't even know me. People, I'll always kept my cars close to my chest. Even now, I've never ever told my story in depth. Ever. Yeah, you're right. I've spoken about my... This is new, everyone else's. Yeah. I've spoken about my addictions. I've spoken about other things. I believe when the time is right, I'll tear it. And people will be shocked. That's actually the shit that I've been through, the shit that I've done, the shit that's... I think I've cleaned my character up where I've become a better person. I've become a better soul. I'm trying to do the right things over the last seven or eight years. My life's been full of misery and torment, but nobody realises the extent. I'm glad I never told my story because then people judge me for who I am now and not who I was in the past. Then once people actually realise the shit that I've went through to go fucking hell, that kid's done well. Yeah, but I think with the amount of empathy and understanding you have with your interviews, you've obviously been in a lot of them situations yourself. A hundred percent. You run just... You get it straight away. I never broke. I've never... People call themselves gangs. I was never a tough man. I was always in the mix. I was always in the middle. Always knew how to manipulate situations. Always made money. Always done what I could to survive. But not once did I break. Not fucking once. And that's how when I laugh at people, even some people come on to show that I'm not at a challenge. I'm not at a judge. But I know when some people is pulling the fucking track to pull the wheel over my eyes and I think, come on, like you're not feeling any comfortable. It's fucked. But that's... We all do that to some degree. But life's... We never have a money figure out, Paul. And from who you were to what you're doing now was unbelievable. It's totally night and day. I've nothing but respect. If you had love for you now, I would always be there for you. And obviously, this interview was took away because I wasn't too sure because obviously you would book it in and then you would step back and then book it in. And you'd done the same the first time because I knew you were always skeptical. But today's the day we finally put the jugs on together. You know why? Because as I said to you, I can't let my whole life be defined by one incident. My friendship with Pat was bigger than that one incident. My love for Pat was Diak. He was on a pedestal. He was on a podium before my wife, my kids. His own wife used to say that. He puts him before his wife and kids. That's just me because I never had a brother. I wanted a brother and he was my brother. He might not have seen it that way, but I did. I was an uncle to his kids. I would look after him in the best way I could. And indirectly, his brothers was my brothers in my head. And I would treat him accordingly. But at the end of the day, when it was explained to me and they went, though it just still fell into place. And I thought, hang on a minute, Paul. You've took everything to heart. Pete won't come and see you. I'm going to listen, mate. Take no notice. We ain't taking no notice. And when they didn't, I took it a little bit. I was hurt by it. Really? Fucking hell, unbelievably hurt. But all I was to them was Pat's mate. They weren't my brothers. I was Pat's mate to them. That's who I was described as. And I thought I was full of more than what I was. But they ain't down to them. That's down to me. That's me having that, having that what I wanted, that belonging, being part of the same. Because I never felt part of my own family. I never did. Just felt odd one out. And I think that was because of my sisters. Because they come along and upset the apocat. And being that sensitive I was, it just, yeah, never felt right. So I went through all the chaos. I went through the football euloganism. Join the cadets to start with. This is it. I'm going to be in the Navy. Right? Got out of that. And I've never, I've just constantly battled to find my place. And when Pat was concerned, I found it. I will be his, oh, this is my, this is my job now. This is my job. And he's the only one that really fucking helped me out in life. And he did. It all went wonky. But I don't forget James, right? I've got a very long memory for people that have done things for me. And I respect them. And I'll never forget it. And me and Pat used to argue about this certain person. He would run these kids a damn rat him off. And I used to go, look, mate, I'm not being horrible, but I can't run him down. I come out of prison in 83, 85, 85, 86. I come out of prison. I had nothing. He didn't know. They come around, they walked in the pub, walked around, he went, you just come home. I went, yeah, give me 100 quid. 100 pan in 86 was a few quid. It meant something then. And to this day, I've always said, when I'm running down, I go, look, maybe so. But I don't forget what you've done for me. And I think there's a part of Pat's fault that I didn't appreciate how he dealt me. But I thought he'd have recognized the way I show my appreciation is by being your person who will do anything for you. I am now. There's my appreciation. I will look after your boy. I will back your boy up in any situation. And I don't think he realized that's what I was doing, paying back a debt that I didn't owe. But to me personally, I had to. That talking about that show you how vulnerable you were that if somebody was good to you, you would literally pay your life for failing someone or dying for them. Million percent. Without even, without even, but it doesn't even, I don't even have to think about it. It's what I would do. I will be your protector. I will be your whatever it takes. I'll give my life. It's scary because I used to see people in crowds and I used to look at, at least they think I want to be them. I want to be a part of that. But as I've got older, the knowledge that I've got now understands flying. So there's this biggest strength you can ever have in life. And that and yourself. And that takes time because if you've been through trauma as a kid that's tribalism, you want to feel part of something. Why do people go to football? Because they feel part of something. It's like a brotherhood. Why do people fucking join the cadets or go to the army? There's something missing. Exactly. There's a tribal... We're all tribes, we all get families, but there's always an element of what else is missing. So we want to join something to feel part of it even though it's the wrong decision sometimes. Did you feel misunderstood, Paul? Yeah, yeah. In what sense? I just, as I said to you, I'm a very complex person. I know I am, right? I see things so different to other people you wouldn't believe. But it's how I see things. But I don't think... All right, if I'm a person who wants to be on a one-on-one level, right? Me and you, three people, don't sue me. I like one-on-ones. That way I'm on an equal... I lose that... What's the word? I'm just not comfortable. I'm not comfortable. I don't like being in... Even though I go to football when I go flying at football, that I'm part of. But if I'm in an intimate situation where there's three of us sitting there, I don't feel... I'm on the outside looking in. That's all I am. I'm on the outside looking in. People don't know me. People think they know me. If they knew me, they... They may be a little bit more understanding. And a little bit... Listen. No one has used that word to me. At all. It's only ever come out one mouth. And that one out of the mouth, that was on a text. This may be said behind my back, but not to my face. I've lost... I had so many what are called friends. And I won't say in London. I'll say in Islerton. A lot of friends in Islerton. And I'm not talking about them as a family. I'm talking about other people. And they all turn their back on me by not even contacting me, these ones. People I didn't know proper faces. I got a phone call from Mickey McAvoy, right? Mickey McAvoy's a legend, right? In my eyes, right? And I went... And I had a full-out with Mick. 30 years ago, over Wayne. And I said to Mick, he wrote anyway, so I went, Mick wants to talk to you. All right, Mick. I said, listen, before you start, Mick's got Mick's died now. Right, fucking... What life did he have? What chance would the way people treated him nicking his fucking money? And he went, Paul, let me just tell you something. No one thinks that of you. Now, he's the one person I thought would have because we didn't speak. We had a full-out. And I went, let me apologize to what I said to you over Wayne. He went, why you got to apologize, Paul? You was doing what was right for your mate. You're a fucking lawman. You stuck up for your mate. He said, now I've looked at your eyes in the podcast. He said, I've never, ever looked at a podcast, but I watched your one. And he said, now I can see the fucking pain and I can also see the lawyer in them. That... That and the fact that one of his brothers come and see me was the two main things that give me that little bit more. It made me feel okay. They made me feel okay. With that, them two things, I'd have just been in, in, in turmoil all the time. But you ever saw a cedar before? Oh, fuck me. Three or four times I've gone, yeah, don't lie. In my life, James, I used to bugger walks and I'd literally go, I can't do this no more. I don't want to be in this because I never thought I could be happy again. I've never thought I could be friends with anyone again because I didn't want anyone around me. I'd be on my own and I used to go, yeah, I'm going to kill myself, I've had enough. Can't keep putting my wife through it. I'm making everyone in the ass unhappy. And I thought I'm making myself sad. But then I think, hang on, Paul. The only people who's going to suffer is your family. You're gone. You leave them with this shit. So I didn't do it. I didn't do it because I didn't have the arse I would do it as well. You must have been hard work for your family as well, Paul. Oh, mate, listen. My wife. Because it has that ripple effect where there's other destruction it causes around you that anger because we take out the people we love. It's terrible. My kids are stuck by me all the way. Like they've never bought any shame in my ass. They've never done anything to embarrass me. They're just, they're two proper doors. And my wife, 35 years, I've put her through some shit. She's stuck with me throughout the drugs and the madness and the paranoia and walking around the ass with a fucking gun or a big dagger and thinking, never knowing who, but thinking someone's coming. It was usually the police I was expecting, but I know if the police come, I'm going to drop it anyway. But the paranoia in my ass must have been fucking horrendous. My kids used to walk past me and walk, go walk in the room and move me out the way. Because I'd be like that, looking at the corner. Excuse me. Just took it for granted. And when I have to think about that, that's fucking terrible. Because that's trauma for them. That's the trauma of my door being. It never used to get kicked in because I used to fucking hear them. I had it because don't forget I'm awake. I'm landing bed watching the telly. It's four o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning. So don't think you can slip up my path without me hearing you because I heard them. I heard them call the time. I looked down and I remember one day I went, I've heard this noise, right? So I'm watching the untouchables. So yeah, click, click, click. I thought that sounds like the noise of the shutters going up on the back of the evening standard band. So I thought, well, it definitely ain't an evening standard band. That's how I built. And there's what I got. I looked up underneath the curtain. I looked under it and I just heard compromise, compromise. That's straight up and I was all screaming. And I just remember, I remember just looking. I went morning chaps. They went like fucking lunatics. I had red dots all over me. Long story short, open the door. Hey, can I open the door? You're screaming at me. Let me come downstairs and open the door. Don't put the door in. Come down and let me in. I'm calling Nick for a fucking show in. Nothing to do with me. Nick for a show with me and three other kids, all called Paul. All knew each other, but we was all part of this so-called conspiracy. There was nothing to do with us. Generally nothing to do with us. But yeah, my kids, I didn't see that. That's on one occasion and it happened again six weeks later in the house looking for guns again. And it was like, fuck me. My kids can't keep having to put up with this. But they have and they still, I think they, they understand me. Found that one of my daughters is very similar to me. The other ones completely different. But my granddaughter, she's, yeah, she's the first grandchild. And she's, I put her through a trauma and all. This is why I've, since I've come out of the hospital, she's never been the same, my granddaughter. And I sat down with a one-down spike about it. And I said, listen, I said, what's the matter? So she went, well, when you were in hospital, they told me you fell out of a tree. She said, but I would sit in that. Don't get, she was probably two, maybe two and a half three. She still knew what was going on. She was about three. And she said, I used to think, well, what, have all these policemen got guns if he fell out of a tree? She said, and they'd all be talking, but she's listening. She ain't stupid. Yeah, Ken's clever. She's never been the same with me. She's the same. I go with Cudderwood and she's, she's like that. And we're both like that. And it's, it's sad. But, um, yeah, I've put them through trauma, my kids, and they don't, they, and I swore that's the reason why I moved out to where I moved. I think when my kids growing up amongst all that chaos, no more, I wanted them out of the way. And we had a good year there with, and it was good. And then it all went, it all went wonky when that happened. But they're all right now, and they've got a grandson, which was the other thing that I was, I was missing in my life. Because I used to adopt people's kids. That's what I used to do, Wayne's son. Pat's son. Other people's sons. I just sort of take them under my wing and they become my little mates, you know what I mean? But now I've got my own little mate. But I've met some great people. Since this, people that ain't toxic, people that ain't nasty, people that are genuinely good people, good arts, good motivation, and positive energy. And it's, I've got, I'm really good friends with an ex-arsenal footballer. And you saying about people giving you gifts. The first time I met him, he asked me if I could do my favor about something. And he turned up with a signed Arsenal football and I asked you, sure. And I was sitting there and he went, yeah, mate, just for sake of you. And I went, oh, oh, oh, quivery. Don't know what to do. And he pulled me on it a couple of months later. He went, you don't like receiving presents, do you? I went, why? He went, when I give you the ball and the shirt, you melt it. He said, strange. I went, but that's what I'm like. I don't, I've got to do something to justify something. Don't give me something for nothing. Don't come up and go, yeah, mate. It's not for me. It's not for me. I don't take, most people out there can be bought. Everyone's got their price. I ain't, I ain't. People have, I've heard of stories where people have gone, yeah, he took this and he had that amount of money. None of it's true. Don't, don't talk behind my back because you're just talking about saying you don't know. You want to know something? Come and ask me and I'll give you a straight answer. I can't be bought. So don't fucking try and buy me. No one can buy me. And that annoys me that people can think that I can be bought. That's why I resent a lot of people down there. And I'll say it again. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about friends who I've been there for, people I've put through rehabs, people I've helped get off drugs, people I've given money, I've looked after, I've, I don't think people realise how much I've given to people. I don't talk about financially, energy and everything. But people see that as a weakness. They take the piss. So that's good that you can feel positive people and good people. I'm at a stage in my life now. I know who's good and who's not. So if you're not enhancing my life, if you're not better in my life, in my family's life, I ain't interested. If you need help, by all means, I'll be there if I know. That's the sign. I can help you. But I don't have too much going on to be, I used to be a people pleaser as well and try to do all the right things to fit in. But now I can say, no, now I just listen. It's not happening. I'll be there when I need to be. Or no, I'm at a place where I know it's right for me. I don't know how long I've got on this planet. So it's to keep building this and taking it to new heights and keep providing for the family and try to create memories. Everything else doesn't mean it's the elephant. Everything, I've gone through it now. I've had all the watches, right? They all had to go because we had to live, right? So everything had to go. All the weird call, them stupid materialistic shit, right? It all went. And once I got rid of what materialistic shit I'd ran me, I didn't have nothing to worry about now. The watches are gone, they're all gone, right? I mean, my actual life is so simple now, apart from when I have a meltdown for a week or two and I don't talk to no one, where I just go into my own head and I lock myself upstairs. But I've got all the people in my life I need. I don't need no one else in my life. There's a few people I haven't seen in a while but that's because I didn't have the energy to their emotional baggage. I couldn't carry it. I had enough carrying me on the night to just go, look, I've got back off for a little while. And I wasn't happy about doing it but I had to do it for my own benefit and my own mental wealth because it was making me fucking ill. It was making me so ill. And yeah, I'm doing positive stuff now. As I said to you, I help the kids. I do things with schools. I do things with these changing lives which is a good organization which has started from nothing and they help a lot of kids. And I got a comment a little while ago as a kid that he was a landfill and he didn't stop fighting, bashing people up. Big, big lump. And I sat him down and I said, I should talk to him. In the end he used to come and say, he's pulling. And they'd go listen, son, son wants to see you. So I'd go down and I'd go and sit and talk to him. Anyway, as I said to you earlier, I'll do a thing called restorative justice. You get a call order, referral order. Rather than send you in the custody, you plead guilty, you get a referral order. You go on this panel. On the panel is me and someone else who's a volunteer. We sit there with you, your family and the youth offending team. And we work you out a little contract of what you've got to do. We look at all their records. We get all the access to everything. So we go through their files. Right, he's missing a bit without, he's doing drugs, blah, blah, blah. And they have to go through all these little, over the 12 months, they have to satisfy everything on it. If they mess up three times, then we have an option to send them back to court. And I just said some straight away, don't expect me to send anyone back to court. No one. And I won't. I just refused to. I'm not going to do that. I'm not sending them back to court. You've got to keep trying. If you don't keep trying, what are you doing it for? So I'm persistent with it. And this mother come in, and this bloke come in, the kid come in, and he walked in and he went, because he doesn't know I'm there. So I went, all right, Paul. So I went, are you? And he went, he wished we'd say, she went, is that Paul? So she went, he went, yeah, she went, can I thank you? She said, you've changed my son's life. So much. Every ex, what he does, she said, you can't leave with everything to her. Ah, that made me feel great on my life. That just give me such a lift. I thought, well, that one kid, it's worked, I'm one kid. She's got to work on others. So that gave me great, great pleasure. Last week, a lady, I finished doing what we had to do for three months. And she'd come in and she'd give me a voucher for Costa Coffee for a fiver. And it's the only thing, thanks for helping my family. That meant something. That was a, that really meant something to me. And it was strange. And I thought, all them years, I'd be running around a lot of lunatic trying to get this and that, and that meant something. That's how in life, how them small things mean the most to you. That's the government. It's amazing. I'm trying to do it in a positive. You're back in the day when you're running in that circle, you're given by anger, frustration, vengeance, negativity. Start changing your life, problem-seeing the world a bit differently and start getting praise for positive things. Actually mean something when nobody's been harmed. Internally, that kind of makes the pieces of pain not so tough in the kind of come together. And life makes sense. Same thing you're looking at past as well. No doubt you've inflicted a lot of pain on people with the circles that you get. Yeah, about that. So you have many regrets with that. And I know people say, oh, hindsight's a wonderful thing, but... Is there anything that sticks out you think? Obviously, it can't be covered. Yeah, it could be a couple of things that could have been handled differently. But... But your method of thinking then was you were doing the right thing. Yeah. Ain't it fucked up how the mind is, how when you think that life are crime and misery and pain and causing pain on the others is normal? Of course. That's sad the way life goes. And because I've spoke to so many people, I see a lot of sadness in people as well. Not so much to you today, but back three years ago, I thought, fucking hell, man, you're struggling. Yeah, I was in trouble, man. I was in trouble. It's... Yeah, there's a few regrets, but I'll say one thing. With this whole scenario with me getting shot and the build up to it, I wouldn't change any of that. I would have still... I would have still stuck to my guns. I would never have flown his boy under a bus. For whatever part he had to play in it, I would have still done the same. The only... Maybe my ego, because that's what... If I had just done Paul Tainanotis, this would just die down and he would move on. It was my ego. It wouldn't let me. It wouldn't fucking let me. And it was... I sat again. It was because I was hurt. It was my brother. And I keep calling him my brother because that's how I treated him. That's how I treated him. Spent most of my fucking life with him, over in Spain with him, back here. Get up in the morning and it'd be the first thing I'd do, bring him up and but... But he just looked at strange things in life and I couldn't understand he's... If I ring you up, if you're my friend, and I'll give you a for instance, I've been getting followed. Like this is him, I've been getting followed by these Eastern Europeans. I don't know what they're fucking up to. I think they're gonna wrap me up or something. So I'll ring him up the next day. No answer. Ring him up four or five times. No answer. In Paul's head, he's wrapped up. He's tired. He's probably been shot in the fucking head. He's been dead. Am I gonna do what am I gonna do? So I'm now panicking. Because in my head, it's happened. It has actually happened. Ah, fucking hell. Then all of a sudden, I find that he's in prison saying, fucking ringing up, finding out where I am. Asking people where I am. I'm asking because I fucking love you. And I'm scared something's happened to you. That's why I'm asking where you are. You're my fucking mate. Don't you understand that? Pat looks at it a different way. Why do you want to know where I am? Because just to them with you, to go, I can't find you. I'm worried something's happened to you. I'm worried something's happened to you. I didn't understand his mentality of that. And that was wrong. And that was one of his excuses, why I'm a police informer. Because he's always asking where I am. He thinks it's for the police. The police can follow you on cameras. Come on. The only 1970 or 1980 no more. Even though he's shot you, turn your life upside down at that moment and fucking suicide or mode. Shit that's been said to you. If he round you up right now and says, I'm sorry. What would you do? That would do. That would do. It won't happen, but that would do. All he had to do is just listen. He wouldn't even have to speak to me. Just go listen. And I was filling a few gaps for him. And he realized he'd been taken for a fault. He would. By one, I like to think before I leave this off, me and him can actually bury the ashes of the right wrong word to use. But look, at this point in my life, I put a line under it. That part of my life was complicated. It was fucking hard work sometimes. Hard work. But it's done. It's done. I'm in a different mindset now. I hope he's happy and I hope he's getting on with what he's doing. Where I am, I'm happy. If ever the opportunity come, when me and him can meet one on one, I'd love it. It won't, because what can he say? Everything he said, he knows he's by looks. But there's nothing he can say. Put it this way, if I had done what he'd done, which I could knit, he's brothers, right? I wouldn't throw their friends like that. I wouldn't throw their friends that way. I'm sorry, but it's just not something you would do. Not something that's been me 25 years and you've got no ammunition on him. You don't start creating it. They just wouldn't do that. So what can he actually say to me? There's nothing you can say. People, you never thought you'd be the man you are today with the shit you've been through. You don't know what he's had to do with as a kid. You don't know what he's been through in life to then see the world like that. He's had a rough go. He's had a rough go. He's had a rough go. But I think... And it's sad to see, because I know great fucking people who's that life is just totally... Most of the people in that world... Fucked. Most of the people in that world... There's nobody gets out, Paul. You know that yourself. Everybody I know from Glasgow, there's one man probably who's lived a decent life and he seems to got everything together. He's older. Paul, at that rate, highly. And they're still good friends with him. But there's another man from where I grew up. A bit older and he's done everything. Created business, made a bit of money for himself. Never told his story. Just does his thing, drives a nice big car. And I thought... Because there's not many people I know that's got out. High caliber, all around the fucking world. Him, I kind of... He's done a bit of damage in the day. And it must... You know, there's self-screams of trauma, the pain, whatever. It will affect him, no doubt. But always thought... There's not many I know who's kind of got out with it all together and still kept their head above what. Without either getting done with proceeds of crime or getting sent to prison or losing loved ones around them. There's not many... So, you got... And that's what I look at. I look at this. That's what I say to these kids. You're not in this... Don't mean you're in this for a fucking lifetime job because you ain't. And it ain't. It can change at the drop of an hour. It can change in a second. You just... If you're in it, you're in it. But if you ain't in it, you can't be involved, can you? Step back from it. It's fucking chaos. It ends in three ways, doesn't it? You know it ends up. Dead. Prison. Well, there ain't really have another way, is there? Dead or in prison. So... Or in one bedroom flat on your own. On your ass with nothing. That's what I've seen people of... For years, I've believed... My wee millionaires. Gotta be. Been in the gang for years. I feel fucking sorry for faces. Proper fucking legends. Freddy Forman. He's a fucking little flat. That's not the life I thought he would be having now. It's... It's... Yeah, a lot of tough bastards. The Rob Crillers. He was Glasgow Manchester. Died in Corder, I think. Glasgow, I just had... ...Russo McVicar on. Yeah. His father, John McVicar. He died alone in a caravan in Essex. Look, these people are so... There's so much respect for these men as well. But yet... Like you say, everybody thinks they're doing well. And Russo, he never spoke to his dad for years. He thought he was doing okay. He thought he was sweet. And he says, if I fucking knew, he says I would have been there. Because I never mind, we think people, he's like you say, but in the game for 40 years, 50 years, he must have a fucking nice... Little nest egg out by. But you know yourself, that one loss of parcel, that one fucking big sentence. You're back in your ass again. Everything goes to fuck. And the coppers only need to get lucky once. Once, you go get what, every day? For what, 20, 30, 40 years? Like I said, I don't know anybody that's made their money and got out and they're sitting comfortable. One person out of fucking thousands that I've came across over the years. And everybody's going, it's a vicious cycle. I used to look up to the men in Glasgow, had the convertible BMWs and nice big blondes in the front seat. And I thought, I need to be that. How do they be there selling gear? And you thought, that's what I'm going to do. And then you realise how fucked up and depressed in that life is. Because none of them, after 10 years, are on their feet. They're all in and out of prison. The birds are haggard, fucking free-form kids to different men. And it's just a waste of life, man. And it's sad to think that that's so normalised through the years. I think a lot of people are waking up to it now because a lot of people like yourself and a lot of people in the underworld actually speaking the misery and torment it causes and the destruction it causes. Not just of the person who do it, but the people around them, their weaves, their moms, their dads. It's their family. It's the people that we take for granted who we don't even talk about. We don't consider the fact what they're saying. I never considered what this would do to my life and kids by my acting how I did that day and going down there. I never give it a second thought because it was all about a poll. How I felt. I never asked them how they felt. But it was, as I say again, it was me. It was the fact of I've got to stand up. I'm not like you other people. Why stand up for my fucking self and my family? And it was, it was ego. It was ego. Could have been handled different from both sides. Yeah, it should have been handled differently. But it wasn't. I'm just getting what I didn't do too fucking bad at the end of the day. It's mad to think that we love our family or I'd do anything for my message. I'd do anything for my kids. But yet, people don't start a life of crime because that destroys your family and kids. If you really love your wife or your girlfriend, your kids, your mum and your dad, you go out and get a job. You take it to new heights. You work hard and try and do the right thing. Nowadays, everybody talks about being alpha and doing this. It's all bollocks. You want to be a proper alpha. You want to be a proper man. Provide for your family. No matter what it takes, no matter if it's shoveling shit, flitting burgers. It doesn't matter. Or building fucking skyscrapers. All it needs to be, as long as you're providing for your family, your misses, your kids, you're already winning. And don't buy into all the fucking glitz in the glam, the private planes, this and that. These people, if they're loving that good life, why do they need to post it all the time? Why do they need to do videos sitting themselves, talking pure shit about life when they've just been brought up in a fucking silver spoon where they're just talking absolutely out their arse? That ain't life. That ain't normal. Being normal is fucking providing and protecting. Being there for your family, working hard, providing for them. When your life's all gravy or whatever else comes into that, then it's all fucking golden. You can take things to new heights and make as much as you want. You have got a clean sheet to take whatever you want in life. And if you've had all the watches, you've had all the big cars, it don't mean fuck all. I bought a cut of nice watches. Oh, distractions. And I think fucking hell that. It's just all a feed something and an image for yourself that you're doing okay. Yeah. But let's talk about about your fucking dealing with up here. Exactly. Let's talk about are you okay? I mean, I actually asked that question. You tend to see a lot of people do struggle with answering that. Listen, as I said, there's... This, you say, I'm really, really passionate about only because of what happened to Wayne. But the amount of kids who are in this prison system, who shouldn't be in the system because they're mentally ill or they've got mental problems or they've got drug problems before they get to the system. So you're in a cult. Why are you going to send these kids to prison? Right? They're not in a good place. They need help. Right? But you're not even offering them any help. You're not even identifying your illness. They get in the system. And we're trying to do something at the moment to get an end of the documentary game about the prison system and the state of it. Young kid, about a month ago. He's coming home. He's got a not-bounded probe. He's due out. He'll be out soon. Right? He's looking forward to everything. His wife, his kids. He's in a great place. He takes his own life. Right? He's Paul Bryant. Good friend of my pal's family and everyone. It would have people from his other name. The last person you would have expected it. He took his own life. Wayne took his own life. They're not identifying none of this. And I just find it so sad that kids... Wayne was a man. He's a kid. He's a man, but he's still a kid in my eyes. You've got screws. They're in the system. They're there to lock up prisoners. They're not there to deal with mentally ill people. They're not just trying to identify all that. They don't know the difference whether they're on drugs or whether they're mentally ill. So they treat them all the same. This kid had the same problem as what Wayne had. His family was ringing up constantly. He's not being himself. They didn't act on it. They didn't do nothing. And he killed himself one night. Wayne done exactly the same. The family was trying to get him moved to a hospital. That took three years at that inquest to get that to inquest and fight the case. And some of the things that were said in that inquest was unbelievable. The psychiatrist, she went, what we're actually doing is we tried to do a trial with Wayne. So the barrister said, what do you mean a trial? She said, we're going to do a trial test with him to see how long he could last without his drugs. Because he's been on them for 30 years. So what we're going to do now is just try and see if he works without them. So you're now just taking the drugs that this man survived on off him for a little test run. So he said, and when was the trial going to end? She went, well, when he relapsed. Well, he fucking relapsed that and killed himself. So what good was that? Anyway, some of the things that were said in the trial was the night screw. He went to Gambia and they weren't going to call him. So we said, stop the thing. We're not going on until you call him back. So he got him back to England and made him give evidence. And they asked him the questions about what would you have done if you'd have looked in the aisle because he didn't do the night check. He never checked at all. So he wouldn't have seen it. But if he'd have looked in, he said, what would you have done if you'd have seen this man in this distress state? He went, nothing. He said, but you've got a key on you for emergencies. And he went, it's not my job. This is Avery's talking. It's not my job. African goes up. But the jury are here. And he said, no, I wouldn't have opened the door up and helped him. I'd have just gone down, which he didn't. That was he didn't check. But eventually the jury see everything that was said and see all the holes and all the gaps in them. And they said he's neglected. His mental health was neglected by the prison. They should have identified he was having a relapse, which he did. And they didn't. And he died. Another needless death. So he got Wayne, Paul Bryan, Charlie Tozer killed himself. There's so many people that just move on. No one says nothing. There was nothing in the papers about Wayne's death about the inquest result. Nothing. But there was plenty in the papers about Wayne this, Wayne that, when he was, when he killed himself. But no, nothing, nothing. Who was in the Jigsaw killer? No, Wayne was the. He was the so-called number public enemy, number one. And who was a Jigsaw killer? You spoke about it. That was my cousin. Yeah, my cousin. He was a mad bastard, wasn't he? Yeah, he won't work with him. Never one. He's ill. He's ill. But he hasn't. He's, he's, um, being on a ship. He's got his life. I know he's in prison. He's in prison probably for the next rest of his life. But he's got his, in there, he's a chef. He's, he's, he's flying. Makes everyone cakes and he, yeah, he, he's, he's all right. He's found his little purpose in life. But when you're in there for 38 years, you've got to. I've got friends that are in there doing, this is what I'm saying to you. When I'm, I'm such a bad person, right? I've been visiting people who I've met in prison since 1990s. Who are still in there. I'm still visiting them. I'm still, I'm still not forgetting these people. Because I've got a good memory. With things like that. We're seeing more than you've got a good heart. I've got a good heart. I'm not a terrible person. I've done terrible things. I'm not a terrible person. And as I said, I've got, the, the people I've got in my life now are positive. One of them's, I haven't been working. Someone's given me a job. And I really appreciate what this man's done because he's, he's changed my life. He's changed my life where I haven't got to worry about where the next bills are going to get paid from. My wife works, but she funds her own power, as I explained to her, which she does the powerlifting. And there's a lot of good energy in my life. My wife's 60 years old. I'm going to talk about it because I'm, I'm so proud of what the girl's done. She took up powerlifting. She done strong woman competitions. Then when in the, she weighs 57 kilos. She got picked through, through our other competitions and got picked to represent same GB. She went to Canada, one three golds, Budapest, one golds. She'd just come back from Ireland and come first at one gold. 145 deadlift, as I said to you earlier, 57 kilos. See, I couldn't do a 145 deadlift. And I definitely couldn't do a 120 squat. She's a, but she's someone who moved on. When this happened, I come out in my spill. She got me better and then she got a life. I didn't. I wallowed. I felt sorry for myself. She will not mention his name in any way, shape or form. If I'm mentioning it, she goes like that. She's not interested. To date, when she was coming in, she went, what are you doing? So I said, listen, I'm going to put a line under everything. She didn't do what you want. She thinks I'm, she thinks why am I doing this? But she doesn't understand. I can't leave things unsaid. I have to have a, it has to be finalised. And that's just, that's one of my biggest problems. I can't leave things unfinished business. And I think that's why it's important today is to put a lien under it. It is. No more anymore. Talk about the positives in life. Talk about what you've achieved and talk about your misses, the good energy, the positives. Even when you're speaking about it, though it's not doom and gloom, you've kind of absorbed the pain with it. It's kind of just there and you deal with it. I don't feel the pain. I'm hurt, but I don't feel the pain. I can't. As soon as I think about it, it don't hit me in the stomach. It's gone. As I say again, it's been a mad journey. It has been a crazy journey when I think back on some of the exploits. But it's also, it's been a pleasure being part of whatever it was. And it was, yeah, it's been mad. But moved on now. I'm in a better place. And a lot of what I was going to say, I forgot. But yeah, I'm all right now. That's what I like to see it. Who was winning in public in the number one? He was a mad bastard as well. Well, yeah, he was like a brother-in-law. I know he was sort of, he was big in my life until he went to prison. I was in prison. He was on the run. I come out of prison. I got my pat. And Wayne was then in prison for the next 20 years. But he was a gang man, Wayne. But they just, they ruined him. They ruined him in the system. And then he just felt sorry for that man. What it must have, I don't know what it's been like for me in 10 years with the mental health thing, right? And what that man must have gone through in like 25, 30 years. It must have been torture for him. And there are certain things that I do regret that I didn't give him more than my time. I never, listen, when he was nicked for this case, we applied for bail. I said he can stay at my house. But because of his dementia, we only sent him to blood. They would never allowed it. They said it's not even worth it when you let him stay there because of the kids and blah, blah, blah. Okay, so he goes off on one. But that was, that was an, if I'm honest, I never cried when my mum died. Never cried when my dad died. But I cried when Wayne died. Why? Because I felt that I should have been there for him more than what I was. I just felt that that's what I should have done. Yeah, but that's not on you. You can't be there for everyone. Everybody's their own person as well. Should have just given him a bit more time. That's the hard thing because I've lost family members. I've spoken about loads of things. Family members to murder and stuff. And I feel as if possibly when I was going through changes just to try and, but it's too hard to guide anybody or try and fucking teach anybody because it's focusing all your energy on yourself to make changes is fucking difficult. Nevermind try to help everybody else. And sometimes you've got to reign it all in. It's like an octopus. Just try to help everybody else and do everything. But then once you take the fucking reins in and just work on you, and that's when you can start making the changes because it's not about everybody else. And we can always have a heavy heart. What could have been, what could have been says. But like we always say hindsight is a wonderful thing. And we can't fucking relive the past every day because it will just destroy us. The past is done as it's had and as hard as it is. Listen, if people could ask the question, sometimes the people would just change anything. People would say, nah, hindsight is a wonderful thing. And I would change many things in my past. I would say different people would not go there or whatever. I would fucking change many things in my life. I would make better decisions. My life might not be as good as it is today, but I still like to think I could have made better choices back then because I wouldn't be the man I am today with the shit that I've been through. And that's understood. But I just know if I'd have tried even more at football if I'd have been surrounding myself with better people. Because all the people you were talking about, they're all mad bastards, killers, robbers. It's the circle you kept. It was what we was brought up in. That was the circle of life. My life was always going to be one of crime, prison, whatever. Because of, I told you, one of my major situations, the fact that I lived, I used to look into the prison yard, Pentonville prison. That was before there was a fence. It was just a wall. I'd sit on that windowsill, watching them walk around on exercise. Fascinated. So I've always had the fascination with prison. And I wanted to know what it was like. And when I eventually told you, when I got into Wandsworth, that was a rendus. That was the biggest shock. That was like, let me out today and I'll go and get a job. That's how it felt. I can't deal with this. But I did. What was the worst prison you've been in? The worst prison I'd say in the eighties was Wandsworth. It was a hate factory. That's what it was called. The Eighth Factory. It was just a warehouse of, there was no, it was you and them. All the cons stuck together. You didn't talk to Scrobes. You didn't have anything to do with Scrobes. The worst prison for me personally was Albany. Which is, I went to Grendan from Wandsworth because of the silly fire and all that. They put me there. Anyway, it kicked out. Go Albany. This is quite a mad story. So I walked in Albany. I put me on D-Wing. So Pat's on D-Wing. So I walked in and he went, ah, fuck me, weird. Anyway, yep. So we're on a little foot boat. Me, him and a guy's name, Joe, the Greek. This was, this was like mind blowing, just what happened. So I'm there probably two days. And then there's a little bit of an altercation and the bloke said to Pat, this geezer, he went, listen, mate, you're doing 20 years. You've got to stand up for yourself and make an example, or you're going to have the piss took out you throughout your bird. So the geezers took his advice. But we get on that for, um, salvation. Black geezer runs in the shower. There's a black geezer in there. Stabs a life out of him. So I go in the shower afterwards. He disappears. The geezers stabbed up in the thing. I just picked the knife up, snapped the knife. It's gone. Right. Now the bells are gone. The geezers, it's been, now the old prison, the old wing is screaming the gaff down. Pat's come out of the town. Right. And it was the first time I thought, this geezer fucking lunatic. He went, come on. So I went, I'm there, I am. So I follow him. He's going up the stairs where all the blacks are on the top floor. They're all trying to come down. The screws are trying to hold them back. He's standing there in a towel with me on his shoulder. Come on, man. Screaming on his own with me and him. I'm thinking, take me back to Wandsworth. I want to go back to Wandsworth. It was fucking mad. We come down. They bang us all up. Let's set up a association. We go into Joe's cell. I can talk about these people because Joe's no longer with us, another one. I walk into his cell. So he's sitting there, right. What we do, this is him talking in great coping. What we do, we do this. He's got a flower pot with little plastic flowers sitting inside. He picked the flower pot up, tips it upside down. Something, what's he doing? He's grabbed something else from here. Something else. He's grabbed this thing out of under his box with a blade like that. And he's gone click, click, click, click. He's made a fucking, he's made a bang. Out of the things, it was already prepared to go. He just had to put it together. So he must have been some, some secret agent or something. And he just put his, he put his tea towel over his arm. All right. Got the blade. He went, let's go downstairs. And I'm thinking to myself, oh, mate, I've been here two days. He's just going to have to go and stab someone to death. But he didn't, luckily. But Joe was another one. I ended up visiting in prison. It's a, because he kept cutting screws and causing chaos. So I thought, if maybe I'll visit him, calm him down, he gets a visitor and I'll become one of his best visitors. And what a lovely man. What a nice man. I know it sounds mad. He's someone. They went to arrest him. I think it was Tony Lundy. And they were going to arrest him for a robbery. And if she's as scared of him, they was. They've had observation on an ass. And they weren't sure he was in it. And he come out the house and they were standing on a corner. And they knew it was Joe. And this is in their book. We knew it was Joe, but we pretended we didn't see him. They blinked it. That's the, that's how brave they was. They turned their way because they didn't want to deal with him. He's an awful Joe. But that gives you an insight in that Albany was a mad ass, mate. What's the worst thing you've seen in prison, Paul? There's always people getting stabbed, jugged, or water cut, you know. It's probably, it's not even, you don't actually look at it like that. It just happens. It just happens. For me, the worst time, the worst situation with me was going from Albany. There was a problem in the workshop to do with, you know, the bloke who got Nick for the, um, Lynn and Megan Russell murders. Michael Stone. I don't believe he's guilty. That's all right. He's in the workshop. Little, little situation evolves. He gets up, he clumps the, um, who's in charge of the workshop, the civilian instructor. The bell goes off. So the screws all come flying in. Pat takes charge again, pushes the kid in the office. We're standing in front of the office. We're not letting him in. So there's me, Pat, and another guy's up. It's commotion. And he went, you ain't coming in here, and you ain't fucking taking him. All right? And shit again, it's me and him standing there. Anyway, next morning, they don't take him, but we get a guarantee that he's not going to get bashed up. Got it. Next morning, they're coming over dinner, get your gear packed. We'll not get your gear packed. Come on. I had a little box under the bed with sugar in it. I want a van. Pat gets some slung on a van. He goes to Winston Green. I'll get on the van. I'm going to the Dorchester. Et cetera. Swansea and Cardiff. All over Christmas. I'm getting abused from all the Welsh cons, and as they sent me down to get paid, they framed things at me. And that was like, that weren't a good bit of bird, because that's lonely. You're in the block on your own G.O.A.D. And it was just, yeah, it was a fucker. It was a fucker. But I think of some of the stories when I get into them and I think about them, like one of them, a friend of mine. Jacko, he's another one. All these people I mentioned, he's not there no more. Jacko. He's had a rather geese on the cell. So I said, listen, don't go in the cell. He goes in the cell. The geese does what he does, because the geese can box this geese, a proper boxer. So in the morning, I come out. I go down to the up plate. He's giving out a tube, a metal tube. I get right, dip your mug in, you get your tea. So I walked down to the up plate. So I've got me breakfast. So I went, I'm going to put this in the up plate while I go, unless I'm talking to him. So I'm letting him know that I'm not going to do nothing. And I'm going over there, right? And he's just looking at me. I put the plate and stood up. And he went, bang, right? He's done me, I bit the fence. And he's all I could hear screaming. Paul, get up. Paul, get up. Do him, do him. And I remember jumping up, I grabbed the two bucket off the floor and flung the up tea over him. I've done him with the tea, swung the bucket and the screws on the shoulder. I'm going to be straight in the face to screw the bucket. And I know I'm there going to get bashed right up. And as I eat him with a bucket full, oh, fucking hell. And they just, they just bashed you up and flung you down the stairs. Flung me in the, down the cell in the block. And I remember that I got down there, there was about five people down there, all long termers. And they all want to shit up. And I could smell it. And I was, all I was thinking, ah, please, please don't ask me to get involved in this one. And when they saw, they went in, mate. And I'm thinking, drop me out. He went in with it. I said, he's Paul's ass. Hey, you, mate, you all right? What's happening? Blah, blah, blah. When you going to shit? If you got toilet, be careful of the door. He's covered in shit as you open the toilet door. I went, listen, I'll be in this if you want me to be in it. They went, nah, listen, you'll breathe down it for a month. You'll be back on the wing. You said, we've been down it for a year. Why you got to put yourself through that? Thank you. That's what I want to do here. I went, you sure? I went, yeah, nah, go on, where you going? Yeah, and that was, I think I've done a month, a month of remission with a ball of visas for that because it was an accident and fucking over. Wonsworth was tough, mate. Tough prison. But it was the best bird. Chelmsford, never, never great prison. We had a fucking laugh in Chelmsford. We had a laugh. It's crazy when you think about a laugh. It's funny. Sometimes that's all you can do in crazy circumstances is fucking laugh it off. Who's it mad at this part that you've been across? Came across? I would probably have to say Joe the Great because he would kill you, he would just kill you. That's my opinion, yeah. Yeah, pat, pat, double cane, double cane. And he was. Yeah, he must have been, man, he fucking shot you and talking about the prison stories he sounded, right up for it. Listen, he was in the 80s, he was like, yeah, he was on fire. He was on fire. But that's why he didn't have to be on fire because then I could do that for you. You're ain't here no more. And he was in Spain and he was just being normal. I said to him before when I come out of prison, he was a completely different person. He was all calm and relaxed and he was in a good place. Yeah, we've had a good journey. We've had an eventful life, I suppose you'd say. Do you get emotional over it, Paul? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because he's quite sad that something could, I've got a tail across my chest and this is, I think I do this just every day. I don't know why I do it to myself. Sometimes the man you take a bullet for ends up being the one behind the gun, right? And it's like every morning I look in the mirror and see that. And it's just a reminder, not a needed reminder, but it's just a reminder that things can change and people can turn. You got that before you got shot? No, after. Yeah, there'd have been a bit of your fucking coincidence art, wouldn't it? Obviously. Oh, that would have been, yeah, that would have been terrible. Are you going to keep that tattoo? Yeah. Yeah, I've got that one now and I've got another one. I've never been in the toes. And the other one is, Lord, we ain't a word, it's a way of life. And for me it is. It is a way of life. I don't know if it would be any other way. What was it like actually getting shot, Paul? Does it feel as if you were going to die at any point? Yeah. Yeah, I thought I was gone without any shadow of a doubt. I thought you're gone here, mate. You're gone. I just laid on my back trying to control me breathing because I know if I start, I think I'm pumping out of blood, but I ain't. There's no blood. So I'm thinking this is pumping. I've got to calm myself down. All my first thought was throw the phone, because I've had it in my hand. Little knocky. I thought throw that down the drain. There's a bit of evidence there that would affect other people, not me. That's what I mean. I'm fucking, I'm landing. I'm trying to protect people still. Yeah, I thought I was dying. Yeah, I thought I was. Yeah, I thought I was dying. But I'll assure you one thing, it ain't scary. You weren't scary at all. It was calm. It was really calm. It was almost serene. It was a serene sort of, yeah, it was strange. Most people you think people would over, oh no, no, no. It's probably shock. But yeah, it was calm. It's mad that though, because the only motivation you genuinely should need in life is that you are going to die someday. And I've been in rooms when people have died, loved ones, great grandparents, great uncles, seeing my dad dying. But they never scream. In pain, they never scream for help that they want to be here. They go in peace. As soon as they take their last breath, it's like a relief. It is, isn't it? Strange. So that for me gives me confidence that there's something better, whether there is something else out there. I believe that there genuinely could be something better where they're not worried about it. They just go. Yeah, ain't scary. And it's where it's like when you last breath comes, it's like a relief. It is so strange. This is a fucked up place we're in, Paul. This is it, isn't it? This fucked up. There's a lot of beautiful things. When I'm in Scotland and I see the scenery in the lakes and I go like the earth is a beautiful place. But when you actually come into the game and hear stories, you realize how fucked up the human mind can be in some people. And it doesn't have to be that way. And that's what breaks my heart in life. The world can be such an amazing place, but it just seems to be back in Pernmoio and everybody's confused. They're kind of in a rat race, trying not enjoying it as the way they should be. Everyone's chasing that dollar, isn't they? That money seems to be the... Listen, it is a major part of your life, but you can't let it be your god. That can't be your... Everything's about getting money, getting money. Then what? Then what do you... That's what I say to these kids. What are you going to do when you get it? Leave it under the bed. Leave it somewhere else and then they'll dip in it and then they'll nick it. And it's never your money. What's the point? I'd rather have all my friends from when I grew up as kids. Two of them are just... Well, two of them, one of them, he's got multiple sclerosis. I've got a lot of respect for that man, because he fights this illness, he's got a smile on his face and he laughs and he just... Everything's... I look at him and he's had a... He's got a good life. He's never committed enough crime in his life. He's happy. He's got his kids, he's completely happy and most of our friends are. And the other one, he's a school teacher. He's a really got an amazing job. And he don't even realise, but... And I don't know how to word this, but he lost his wife about a year ago, which was like absolutely devastating for him and his family and everyone who knew her. But when I started to describe the pain I go through as a broken heart, and then when I was at that funeral, that word I used, I'm demeaning it, because that's when I saw what a broken heart was. And it's like that makes me go cold now, because it just... And he out of all my friends, them too, I respect, because he changed his life, become a really respected teacher. All these kids love him, all the people he works with love him. And my other mate, as I said, yeah, all my friends, who I went to school with, who work for a living and live the same life as I did. If not better, because their doors ain't going to come in. They're not going to get stabbed or shot or whatever. They live their life. So that's what I say to these kids, you can have all the things that all these other people's got, you might have to work for it, though. Don't go out and try to be a drug dealer and get yourself an education, get a trade behind you. You've got something to fall back on. What did I have to fall back on? Nothing. Nothing. I had no skills. I was like... And that's when it came to me, I thought, well, you've lived experience here. You've been through most of what these kids are going through now. And that's why when I sit there, I'll put it on the table with them now. Don't I know? So listen, there's nothing that you kids ain't been through or going through that I ain't been through. And I'll tell them I've been abused. I've had this happened, that happened, that happened. I've been shot, blah, blah, blah. And they're like... I ain't got too many excuses, have I? Because I've given them everything to sort of work with. Well, I'll get quite pleased with that. Let's talk about the positives you're doing with your life now, since everything you've been through to the things you've worked on with the therapy, speaking in schools, going in prisons. Let's talk about all the positives and the changes that you've made, Paul. When did you see it all starting to change for you and taking a turn for the best? Honestly, two years ago, I started doing the things in the schools and it's changing lives. And then about a year ago, not 18 months ago, I got this on this panel. It don't pay nothing, it's voluntary all of it. But it gives me... It's all positive. It's all positive. And then I'm doing something with this other place, which is called... Training 360 in conjunction with RIS and that's at the Olympic Park. It's about getting kids the CSS cards so they can go into the industry of building and blah, but train the trade, yeah. And then, yeah, there's four or five things that's all going on. They're all good. They're all about doing what I like, helping again. For the right reasons. For the right reasons, yeah. I don't get involved in anything no more. I may sit down and then get asked, someone will ask me, will you sit down with someone to negotiate or something? Then, yeah, I don't mind doing that. But don't ask me to get involved in anything to do with drugs. Don't want to negotiate with anyone to do with... I don't want to know about all that nonsense. That's not for me. That's not for me. I can't even think the name of the 360... I'll forget anyway, but that's in Baselman. So everything I'm doing is really in Essex. In Essex, yeah. And this, if I can carry on like I am, helping people with drugs, getting them out of drinking, just meant to help all these good things that I've been through, then I've got something to offer. I'm not an out of work, useless ex-criminal. Because one thing I've never described myself as a gangster, and as you've said it, is a tough man. But I've been in tough situations, and there is times when I've had to act the part and be the part and play the part and deliver. That's just, we're all wearing masks, isn't we? That's what you've heard the name on the head that's playing the part. We're all playing the part. An acting game. I've seen people who portray themselves as lunatics, fucking lunatics. I know them personally. They would never fucking say boo to a ghost, but because of that certain persona that they carry, you know yourself, if somebody walks into the room you go, he's got it. But people genuinely, once you actually get to know them, you realize, he's full of shit. The lead ones usually ain't got it. Yeah, not only a fair shit. Yeah, you know yourself, the louder ones are, but there's ones who've got that walk, who've got that persona in that. Prisons. Yeah, okay, right. I know not to fuck with you, I know. You're the real deal. But you tend to see, when you're a kid and you grow up, you think it's the boys' trust ones, the loud ones, the fucking... But that's what you think. Yeah, it's crazy how your mindset does change as the years go on. And that's okay because we can be different people who we were a year ago, a month ago, 20 years ago. It's just, everybody goes through different stages in life, but it's just trying to work out. Are you making positive changes or negative changes? And that's what it comes down to, to try and figure out, are you bringing some goodness into the world? Plans for the future, Paul. Where do you see yourself? I'm just going to carry on as I am. I'm going to carry on, listen, 61. You look great by the way. I've got to lose a stand, that's all. I need to lose two, mate. I've got to stone on. The thing with me, I know I'll lose it, easy. So I give myself that extra few pounds on, but I've let it slip more than I should have. I'll back out running again just two weeks ago, so I'll take about four weeks to get a stone off. You're dying, innit? We're not. It's eating mate, comforting. And that's what I eat on my feelings, I always do. I'm the same, that's my one vice I struggle with, but I know I will master it. I always say I will have my peak and my prime in my 40s and 50s, because all the knowledge I have, it will all come together. I hope so. And I'm a man who likes to believe in what I say, and I tend to go out and do what I say. So I want to lead by example, this man's changed his life, he's in his 40s, he's in his fucking peak condition, he's still doing these things, he's still raising the bar, if he can do it, I can do it. And that's what I say about myself now. I think I'm in the place where I'm meant to be. That's where I'm in the position I'm meant to be in. As I said, I ain't got no loads of money, but I've got enough to pay my bills. This job allows me not to have to worry about the bills. That's a big problem off my back. So it don't, that way I ain't sort of sucked into something. It's not happening. Yeah. I owe it to my family. I owe it to my wife and kids. Most importantly though, most importantly though, Paul, you owe it to yourself. And that's where it all comes down to as well, because forget that. But that's something I've never done. I never put my feelings, I always put everyone else's feelings above my own. And I've always done that. I don't know why, it's just part of, oh, James, I don't know why. I don't know why, because I'd ask the question all the time, how do you do that? When this cancer, she went to me, Paul, what are you proud of? What you've done in your life? And I went, nothing, really. Nothing to be proud of. Then she went, well, nothing. I said, I said, yeah, actually, I'll tell you the one thing I'm proud of is, I don't know, because I do, I usually use this all the time, because it's my only thing I can, the rowing machine in a gym. I love the rowing machine. And I worked on it to do an under three hours marathon. That ain't easy. You've been on the row? Yeah. Three hours. And I've done it in under three hours, two hours, 57 minutes. And the pride I felt from that was unbelievable, because I'm on the concept too, I'm sort of six in this country and the time. And I thought, that ain't bad. That ain't bad. So I've done that. A lot of people say you've been off drugs now for 14 years. You've got to be proud of that. I don't see that. I'll see that as something that shouldn't have happened in the first place. I allowed that to get out of control. I allowed that to happen. Right? So that ain't something to be proud of. You're doing what you should have been doing. There ain't a lot else. There ain't a lot else. There's that. What else is there? I'm proud that I stood. I'm proud that I conducted myself as a friend. I'm proud that I conducted myself after being shot, because there's a lot of people out there, mate, would have rolled over. One million percent they would have rolled, just stand to fear. Because pride in doing what was right wouldn't have come into it. So I'm proud of that. It's probably my proudest thing that I took it like a man and still stood up and I'm still a man and I still live by my rules. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of my own integrity as a man. Yeah, there's lots of things you should be proud of, Paul. And I'm proud of you to call your friend. For anybody that's watching, it's maybe Bartlen with addiction just now. What advice would you have for them? Go to a meeting. It's as simple as that. It's the only advice you can give them. Go to a meeting. You've got to start off somewhere. Go to an AA meeting, CA meeting, AA, whatever you want to go to. But go to a meeting. You've got to start somewhere. You've got to make that first step. If you make that first step, you'll find there's a lot of love in them rooms, which is something that I didn't get. But there is. You know this. Yeah, because these people... You're all the same. ...been for 30, 40 years and that's why people message me and I say get to a meeting whether it's AA, AA, NA, is go to a meeting. You can understand that you're not alone because we bottle everything up. We hide it all. We feel ashamed. If you're not worthy, we're depressed. So we hide it, hide it, hide it. But when you keep hiding it, it just fucking blows your head off. What do people usually say? No, but I might know someone there. People get hit for the same reason as you. Use it. People are embarrassed. It is, listen, it's the most hardest thing to walk in one of these meetings. Yeah. And it's... It's horrible. It's horrible. I still get nervous sometimes, agonising from time to time just to get a wee bit of medicine and keep them on the straight and narrow. Just don't forget yourself because it's just good to know that it can fucking turn because there's people been at these meetings for 20 years and relapsed. Listen, I want to say another quick story. This is a crazy one. So I've been doing the crack. My friend comes around. He said, listen, Paul, it's time you went somewhere. So I went, I'm all right. I look like a cracker, right? But because I'm in a nice ass and I've got nice things, I'm not a cracker, am I? So he went, anyway, it gives me a number of places called Barley Wood. So they take me there quite a moment. Anyway, long story short. I'm going to cut at those. This geezer comes in. He's relapsed. 20 years he's been clean and he's a counselor. He's had a rabbi's wife and he's relapsed. So they went, he come over, he went, all right, mate. He started cracking names. Now, don't forget, I've only been here a couple of days. Yeah, caught that plant. Straight away is a plant. I'm on the phone. Listen, find out if so and so. Now I'm in that zone now. I'm in the prison zone. Find out if you know so and so. And that comes back. Don't know him. Yep, he's definitely a coda. This geezer goes up to bed. I've made a big ooh-ah about this. You've got a coda and he's a plant and blah, blah, blah. No, he's not. I can go back to him. Now he's a plant. Next morning, I'm still on it. I'm still saying it. He comes in and he went, Paul, let me tell you now. He's not a plant. Trust me. I said, I don't believe you. He said, well, he's upstairs in bed dead. He's not a plant. He's dead down at the relapse. Now it's 20 years clean. He's got on the Vodka, got on the snip and he's had a relapse and died. Right? My version is no, you're covering it up now. This is the paranoia. It was overwhelming. And he said, before you ask me your next question, no, you can't have a look at his body because that's what my next question was going to be. Can I have a look at his body? He went, but I'll tell you what to do. Wait at the back door. They're bringing him out about half hour. He was died. Died in there. I feel terrible. Now I've got a whole brand of shame on the man. He's killed this guy. He's just died a copper and he ain't. Did you see his body actually getting taken out? Yeah, I've seen signs for the ambulance thing. No, that man's covered over. They killed a peanut plant, but... No, he was dead. He was generally... That seems about sus as well. He was. He's stunk. Now he's still thinking about that. Unless I had seen his face going out, we think, nah, because that's how fucking good they are. If you've called him out straight away, first thing to do is get his body look. But you know, they don't do them things. The COSR can come in there as a plant, but they're not going to allow that because that destroys that whole privacy thing. Yeah. You can't use any of that against you, but you know yourself, the corpus can stole buggy. They can stole... Oh, look at that. Get their intelligence that they need to catch you. They can't use it in court, but we know how the fucking law operate. If you're being bad, they're going to catch you. The bugs are like... The way they're nicking people now is like... Yeah, they encroach it. Yeah. Mate. But for people you even use in them is just, I'm surprised. Yeah, but I'm surprised that these so-called people that are really intelligent have been at it for years, and now they're taking someone's word that these things can't be act. They can't get in there. I can't... I get that. My head round that. I find it amazing. People talking some heavy shit as well. No sort of code. Yeah. Blatant. Yeah. I've seen people to get some proper bird down to them. Proper bird. Two years, but I think with the France thing, I think it's... There's a lot of shit, apparently getting turned, so... I think they'll overturn a lot of it. Yeah. But there's not a lot of people being sent, so I don't know if they'll get their sentence overturned. I'm not sure how it works. I will do a big podcast on it once that... Once the birds have done the bird, it don't matter if it hasn't done it. It's done. What about anybody that's what are getting involved in the life of Crane Paul? You've lived up, man. You've been at the top of the tree. What advice would you have for them, for any of those young kids watching? No. No. Let me tell you now. It's full of betrayal, treachery, and greed. That's all it consists of. There's no real love in there. You think there is, but there ain't no real love. You can get you get flung under the bus as soon as it soaps with anyone. All right. You might find one or two people that are genuine and... But really, everyone's after the same thing. They want the same dollar. They're all... Most of these people, they're running around with drugs, right? They now describe themselves as gangsters. Right? Because they're running around with a boat full of drugs. They get 20 years if they get nicked. Put a gun in there, man. No. They won't do that. All right. A lot of these kids that they would just stab you up. You know what they do. They don't give a fuck about it. But these kids are getting caught up in situations that are just set up, take a pass, we'll get robbed. Now you're a slave. Now you've got to work for us forever. That's how it works. Don't get done. Oh, you get as much money as you want working for a living and without any of the headaches. For coming on a day, Paul, listen. Like I said, it's for the last three years we've always been in contact. I think what you're doing is amazing. I'm proud of you. I think you've done to then make the changes and try and kick on and do the right things in life. Would you like to finish up on anything? There was a... There was a... I was going to talk about a young kid that... That, um... Another kid. How many people have I said killed herself? It was a young kid called Lee. This happened in 19... No, no, in 2007. He was in trouble from Spain. He owed some money to people. He wasn't a criminal. He was a runner. And he took 200 grand to work a gear off someone to drop it off. He'd give it to someone. He got fucked. So I got the phone call. Listen, do you know this phone? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I know he's father-in-law. Paul Chibi will find out what he's done. He'll find out what he's done with this. I'll get over to this kid. Get him around my ass. This is another one I don't feel good about. He comes to me and I sat him down. I said, right, listen. You know this has got to be resolved. Yeah, I know it'll be done. This is like, he's in his late 20s. Got a little baby just been born. A nice, nice kid. So I said, who's the fella? So he gives me the name. I said, right, but no. It's going to be done on Monday. So I said, if you don't, I couldn't have to, I've got to come and see you to get this sorted out there. It's got to be done. He went, all right, I'll see you Monday. This is on Sunday afternoon. Why don't I hang myself? Another one, all right. And it was like, for fuck's sake. Why did you, that's fear to stun that to him. Fear, and it went out, this bloke did have him over. And we had him set up in this, what we'd done. We had him sort of arranged. Someone was going to get him to a flat because he'd been bullying someone. So what I'd done, I took, I said to the bloke, look, I'll get this sorted out for you, but you've got to put 25 on the table. All right, so I took 25 brown off the guise. I didn't take it at the time. I said, once this resolved, so he went, no, do me. So this guise was nick the 200 grains, going to turn up at the flat. And we're going to deal with the situation. So that's how we're going. I'm in a restaurant with my wife. Sitting in there, someone brings up, can I see you? So I said, yeah, go on, smile. This is sad, because this fella was only trying to do the right thing, right? He was trying to do what I would have done. And he went, look, you know the situation. So I said, you went, I fucked it up. So that's what you mean, you fucked it up. What are you talking about? I've got it under control tomorrow morning. He's going to go to the flat. No, but while I've done, I've got the guise at a rear range, so I'm going to go to the flat. No, but while I've done, I've got the guise at a rear range it for today. He said, I've gone on him. I've ended up shooting him in the leg, right? And he's escaped. And now the police are going to even witness protection. So we're not only, this kid has killed himself. We've lost 200 grand. We ain't, but the people have lost 200 grand. He's going to know himself. This has been fucked right up. And I'll give the kid 15 grand out of 25 grand for fucking it up. That's, because he's still tried. He still was doing it for the right thing. He didn't do it for anything other than trying to prove himself. And I respected him for trying it, but also felt sorry for him. I'll give him his fucking 15 grand, like he was a knit man. And then he started telling me when he was a knit man. And I didn't, I told him, I'm not a kid, but what a crazy thing to do. But yeah, another one. I can't believe how many people I've spoke to have all took their own life. Society now, man. I don't know, social media plays a big part. Addiction plays a big part. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of letting other people down. Just not able to work in yourself a lot. A testosterone is down in men. And I say men have become weaker. It's not weaker to be suicide, but just weaker in a hole that they're just not going to the gym. They're not exercising. They're not finding purpose. That all comes with exercising, eating good and keeping a clean space up here where you'll find out some strength to then try and do something new. If you're taking drink, if you're taking drugs, if you're sex addiction, if you're fucking gambling, if you're feeling sorry for yourself, if you're not exercising, you ain't going to have the strength to then kick on and try and make better changes in your life. Eliminate the negatives that you're doing to try and become a better person. When you get the strength, then you have some inner strength to then kick on and try and create something special with your life. And just staying on that path because it's difficult. We all have follow ups. We still get angry. We still make bad decisions, but it's to be true to you. And remember, you're not on this planet to be a fuck up and a loser or a bum that you can be something special, no matter what age you have people changing their 60s or 70s or 80s. It's never too late to change. And that's what people need to understand. Again, brother, would you like to finish up on anything? As I said, the only thing I would finish up on when you're talking about mental health, if you've got problems with drugs, mental health, or you've got a drama kind of in your head, people don't know about this drama unless you talk about it. You can't be scared to talk to people. You can't be scared to share a drama because I can talk about things now, no problem. Yeah, speak to someone. Don't just take your life or put yourself in a situation that you're in a debt for a situation. Someone can always help you out because talking can be a consult at most problems. It don't have to be about violence. You can talk about it and you can come to a resolution. If you owe people money, people want their money. They don't want to do you and not get their money. So if you can sit down and you can say something, I can give you X amount or blah. People are happy with that. So just think before you act, I think. Oh, well, I'm a little loving respect to you, mate. I wish you all the best for the future. Thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. Thanks, mate.