 Ysbydd yma yng nghymru bydd hIF kitchens, y nrwm yn fwy o'r ddechrau'r lluniau'r lluniau ar y dyfodol yn Sgoledin, ac mae'n gweithio'r lluniau ar y ddechrau'r lluniau, gyda'r cael gweithio'r lluniau, yn ddyn ni'n gweithio'r ddiolol rwy'r ddechrau, ac mae'n gweithio'r ddechrau'r lluniau ar y dyfodol yn sgoledin. Mae'n gweithio ar y ddechrau'r lluniau ar y ddechrau'r ddechrau'r ddechrau eich hunnw, gyda'r gweithio gyda'r cyllidau yn ei gwybod, gyda hif erioedd, y drosig hwn yn ddysgu'r gweithredig llunio cysylltyniwr yn Scotland. Rwy'n gweithio'r gyllidau i'r tyfn o'r Llyfrgell Llyfrgell, rwy'n gweithio'r cyllidau i'r cyllidau i'r cyllidau, rwy'n gweithio'r gyllidau i'r cyllidau i'r cyllidau i'r prysyn. Rwy'n gweithio'r gweld i'r tîm. A'u gweithio'r cyllidau i'r cysylltu llunio'r cyllidau, I shot in the eye and he got killed and my other pal got shot in the back and he got crippled. Luckily I was supposed to be there with him that night and I thought fuck this, I'm going back to England. I then moved into this relationship because there was celebrities, there was nice houses, there was lovely cars and everything. But that whole relation was built on cocaine and I can always remember sitting in prison watching the Ocean's Eleven style heists. And I thought why not be great if I got out and got a little team together, got some police uniforms, a dog, you know, and actually just go into places with warrants and actually do it right. So I came out, I got involved in a few things, I raised some capital and then I got some vans, some cars, some ID, some uniforms and then we went to work. When we're on, today's guest we've got notorious London bank robber Terry Ellis. How are you brother? I'm fine, I'm doing great at the moment. Yeah, good. You sent your book Living Amongst Beasts? Yeah, we've a very powerful book. He's well known as the Ocean's Eleven gang. He's been doing high up to 5 million quid. He spent 16 years in prison yourself. You went to Grendan and you were living amongst serial killers, child killers, rapists, nonces, amongst the most nasty people in the world. But you've done that to make changes yourself and even though we touch on all the other stuff that you've done, you've made some massive changes now to better your life, write books, help the youth, you're very anti gun, anti knife. You try to make changes with so many different people so fair play to you. So how are you brother? Yeah, it's been four years since I got out. I seem to have done more than four years and I've done a lifetime of being a criminal. It's been the most rewarding four years and the book is the combination of everything I've gone through and actually coming out the other side and just becoming a more rounded person. A person who's able to cope with the everyday life and function on a completely different level. Alcohol free, drug free. Statistically I'm not the person the system expected me to be. I'm living a really happy life. That's a beautiful thing, isn't it? I've got my little dog here. I'm happy. I'll always go back to the start with my guests. Where they grew up and how it all began. I'm from Camontan. I come from a single parent family, Mum. Mum had a few issues when we were younger. I had a few mental problems. She was a professional shoplifter. My first memories of being young was really just going to the shops with her and watching her take things and put them away. It encouraged me to do the same when I was walking around. For many years I thought it was normal to take exactly what we wanted. When I was about ten I started going out with my friends. Where I live in Camontan we've got loads of, there's a canal that runs from King's Cross all the way up to Watford. Along that is loads of warehouses. At a very early age I realised it was okay to go out and take exactly what I wanted. We used to break into all the warehouses. As a ten year old I used to go out at 10, 11 o'clock at night. I'd be working all night, nicking gear. We'd break into jean warehouses, toy warehouses, comic warehouses. You name it we broke into it. Then I would bring it home to my Mum. She would sell it and everything would be great. She would then wake me up in the night and she'd say I found a place that maybe you could help me. She'd wake me up if you wouldn't tell my brothers or sisters. Then we'd go there and she'd put me for a window and I'd spend all night passing gear out to her. It was crazy because when I actually got nicked doing things, my Mum used to come down there and give me an iodine. But when I used to get away with it, they'd appraise me. So from a very early age and from everyone I knew was out doing the same thing, it was actually okay to take anything you wanted. But if you got cold you're a ruin. You're going to get an iodine. For me, understanding that now, I realised what dysfunctional family I had and what dysfunctional upbringing I had at that time. I didn't wake up one day at age 11. I had trouble with school. I couldn't learn like other kids. I got dyslexia but I didn't realise at the time. So what I did, that gave me a bit of embarrassment, quite a lot of embarrassment. So I used to exclude myself from the classroom. I used to be disruptive. This then had a knock-on effect because I got expelled from school at 11. And then my Mum knocked on my door my morning and said, like we're going down to look at something. She got a bag and then I ended up going to this place in Swiss Courage and I didn't realise at the time it was actually a home. And then she said, go there and I'll pick you up later. And that was really for me the start of the decline in me because the person I loved more than anything in the world would give anything to who I'd saved and given everything for. I'd left me on the doorstep to be cared for by people I didn't know. How old were you when you were 11 years old? So you were 11, then you realised your Mum didn't want you anywhere. Did you become then rebellious, angry, filled of hate? I tried to escape that night. I got anointed by the staff. He was supposed to look after me. And that's when I realised that adults weren't the people I fought with. Up until that time I've never been hit by an adult. My Dad had to give me a right-hander to give me a belt. Up until that time I've never been hit by an adult. So for me it was a wake-up call that now I can't trust anyone. I can't trust the people that say they love me. And I can't trust adults who are looking after me. I spent a few months there. And then I had a fight with a couple of guys in there. And I whacked one of them across the nut with a chair. And then I was moved from there to a place called Stanford Ass. It was in Sheba's Bush. When I got there, there was five dorms or five asses. Hoair, Hanby, Hastings and a CP. They were really bad kids there. So I've gone there and the place is like a battleground. There's kids fighting every day and you have to prove yourself. So I've only been there a few minutes and I'm being told that I can't sleep there. I've got to sleep there. And I'm fucking a fuck all that. I'm nut. And then I'm having a terror of three or four guys and then they're beating the shit out of me. So I learnt very quickly to keep my mouth shut. I was a lot younger than most of the guys there. But I had a sort of a way with me that I could actually mix in with anyone. So we went in a week or so. It was like my own. And after about six months it was like I'd never been anywhere else apart from this gaff. All I see was fighting every day. The worst sort of kids at 11, 12 years old. And then I said I've got to go to a place in Wiltshire, a place called Greenacres. It's going to be a place where you're going to live. So I thought fuck that, I'm off. And then one of the guys grabbed me, one of the staff and I stabbed him with a fork. And then I was put in the CP where he was locked up all the time. And I thought at least I've got out of going now. And about a month later they came in and said you're getting a van. You're going now. So now instead of being around my family or my friends or anything else, I'm now taking 100 miles out of the road and away from everything I know. And I'm putting this in this home for kids. But for me it was, I expected my fear of going in was probably worse than what it was because I arrived in this mansion of a gaff in the middle of nowhere with fields and everything else. And there was a farm there. And I spent the next two years on a farm, just working. They never gave me no schoolwork because I wasn't very disruptive. I'm not going to lie. I was one of them kids that just, if I didn't lie saying I ain't going to do it. And so they said like, you know what, let's have a compromise, work on a farm. I worked with animals. And then unfortunately there was a couple of the girls that I knew because it was a mixed home. And I ended up having a relationship with one of them and having a kid. And I think I was about 14 then. Yeah, you got a girlfriend at 14. Yeah, yeah. They kicked me out to London. They kicked me out. I then came out to London and the social services couldn't do nothing with me. They couldn't put me anywhere. Couldn't go back to my family. And so they put me in a flat. I think I was about 15 then. And there was two other guys living in this flat, older. They were in their 20s. And you know, they were drinking, taking drugs and everything else. So I had a room now. And they gave me money to cancel. So just lived there every week. I think it was about 50 quid so I had to get my shop in. I was 15 years old. And I'm thinking, you know, fucking, I made it. I'm cracking. I'm living on my own anyway. I'm back in London. And but these guys I was living with, they were actually going out doing robberies. Doing post offices, building societies and other stuff. And I was quite a big kid then. I was doing trampoline and boxing. My dad was a boxer. So we always done a lot of training as kids. And they offered me to come with them. And we sort of just started doing loads of robberies. Post office mostly, you know, going in there straight through the hatches and finding different ways to actually do post office and everything. You know, I used to wait for them to come in in the mornings. I used to catch them going in. I used to go through windows, tape them up. And I thought, well, God, I'm actually fancy. I'm good at. At 15? 15 years old. Coming on to 16, I found. I found something I can actually excel at simply because I had everything. I had all my money. I had nice clothes. I had a nice girlfriend at the time. And I went from having nothing to having a rent in a place out in Amstead. So I give you about a 40. A bit of power. A bit of respect. Something that you never had for all those years. Nobody wanted you. Suddenly people wanted your attention. Well, you know what? You know, that becomes an addiction as well. Does it to you? Do you know what? It was. I don't think people. I don't expect to appreciate. He doesn't put it in the wrong word. I don't think anyone can understand that. That feeling of going in somewhere. And just just just just doing what I used to do. You know, it's quite. There you got a dream in Russia dry math. But it was just it was just different. You know, like, you know, and plus I was anything I knew. You know, I couldn't get a job. I couldn't. You know, I didn't want a job. I was, you know, as a criminal. I was just lazy. You know, most criminals I know are lazy. We don't want to go work until five. So we do the thing that we like. And unfortunately, I like them robberies. What was the tunneling point you can throw your teenage? Years when you started to get into the heavier stuff? I think for me was getting nicked. So you've done six years in a while's? No. Yeah, I got. I did. I got nicked. I remember. You know, I was going. I was sailing through this period of doing robberies as a as a 16 year old kid. And then I went home. I rented a place. I went home one day. And all of a sudden the whole the whole house came alive. Old Bill. You know, next year I got a whack. And he had kicking the bollocks. I was spreading on the floor. And then, and then, you know, all, all, all we've got him. And they said, don't fucking move. And that was the first time ever that I actually realized this wasn't a game. I've happened to that moment. I thought it was a game. You know, I was robbing. It was a lot for them. But the reality then kicked in. And then, you know, a month later, I'm sitting inside. I'm sitting inside Alisbury prison with some hardened kids. You know, like, you know, and I just got. I think I just got four years in as a seven year old kid. You know, but, you know, I networked. I met some really interesting people. And I came out. And I went in. I went on the, on the jump mops. You know, I started just nicking bands. You know, I followed him around. And then you got a, I got a look at, you know, I got, we done, we done a few things. We need to quite a lot of money. And the old bill came on us. So I fucked off to Spain when I was about 21. In that period, I'd also got married. I'd had a kid. I'd separated from her. I felt very, you know, I felt, I felt, I felt alienated for the fact that I'd, I just fucked up a relationship simply because I couldn't control my temper. I couldn't control my womanizing. I couldn't control my job. I couldn't control my relationship. I couldn't control my relationship. I couldn't control my relationship. I couldn't control my relationship. I couldn't control my relationship. I couldn't control my womanizing. I couldn't control my drinking. I found myself in Spain thinking, I don't really give a fuck now if I get nicked. You know what? I'm just going to, just going to take it as it goes. And luckily I knew some people that put me in touch with some people over there. And I started running puff up, you know, from Marbella. I was picking up the beach. Harsh. Yeah. And I was packing it, you know, vacuum-sealing it, you know, dipping it in bleach and then coffee. And then I was putting the car and I was driving up to Baleinfiar, you know, and there was three of us, you know, one in front, one behind, a normal routine mobile phones back in the day. And you know, I didn't care, I just wanted, you know, so I used to go through this thing in my head, you know, if I got caught, fuck it, you know, I didn't care. So, but because I was on that suicide mission, you know, I'd done quite a few runs. I didn't ever got caught, you know, and then, you know, I'd done it for a few years. And unfortunately, one of my, one of the guys I was working, he went off a cliff. Unfortunately, he died. So I had to fuck off a bit sharpish. And then I went to Amsterdam and I was over there for a little while a couple of years. Met some really interesting people, you know, and I had contacts in England, contacts over there. And everything was going great. I had a little place over there. I was in a fucking speedboat in Utrecht. And I was mixing with some really good people going to, you know, all the asses every night. I had been good restaurants and I thought I'd cracked it. I was working with a couple of Serbian guys in the Yugoslavian fella. And one of them went out one night and got shot. He was on a deal, got shot in the eye and he got killed. And my other pal got shot in the back and he got crippled. And luckily, I was supposed to be there with him that night. And I thought, fuck this, I'm going back to England. You know, so I came back to England and I'd met a few contacts over there and they introduced me to some people over here that could supply me with as much cocaine as I wanted. So I spent, I spent the next, I don't know, seven or eight years just giving me that cocaine I could just convey. You know what I do? I've seen you while doing cork, did you stop the bank jobs? Did you stop? When I came out, I was doing the jump ups and then we went and I was selling gear. Doing the gear, I went into the drug game. Everything was going really well. We were doing five, ten key every other day. And one day was a day I never forget. It was at 9-eleven, remember 9-eleven when the tab locks went up. We was all watching Nutelli and my mate was supposed to pick up ten key that morning. So we literally left it in a plot where we'd leave all that gear. And he phoned me the next morning and said, listen, I'm fucked till. We've got to drop that ten key off. And I said, well, I phoned everyone. No one wants fuck all. Only one of my pals had phoned me and said, tell, I'm desperate for two bits. So I said, all right, I won't bring everything. I'll pick up the two and I went down and meet him. I'll give him the two key. And the next thing I know he's going to a block of flats down the Angel. And the next thing in the old streets has come alive with old Bill, like traffic wardens, two traffic wardens post on his guy. Because I remember looking at these guys thinking, they just look a bit funny. And they was all getting closer and all of a sudden the fucking windows are coming in. I'm being dragged down on the floor and I'm thinking, well, you know what, I've got fuck on me. Does that set up? Well, you know what, the guy that I was dealing with was a bit of a prat. He actually instead of going and dropping the stuff off to where he should have gone, he'd gone into his own flat, didn't know it was his own flat now. And he'd gone up and took about 11 wraps out of it apparently. And then brought it down. So as I was getting spready, he'd gone on the floor. Don't be bollocks came out the fucking door. And they got him, me with a gear as well. You know, I was seen giving it to him, but when they got up to us, he was gone. So he was a little bit pissed at that. That's why he came into the car heavy. But now they got him. There's no fingerprints on it from me because it's a Hessian bag. And I think, you know what, I'm not even going to get a time here because they know what I'm at. It's all I'm doing is sitting in the car. Unfortunately, you know, he then said, I'd give him the Hessian bag with a gearing. Start again? Yeah, he'd already just, he just came from doing 12 years, what I didn't know. So, you know what, I ended up getting six years for being in possession of some gear. But luckily for me, the gear came back at really shit percentage. So I got done for one key. I got six years, so I went too bad. I can remember sitting here that evening because two nights before I was at with Kate Moss, Jude Law and Sadie Frost at a party. I think I was in her ass and you know, I think the ass was worth about 10 million pounds. And I think, and then next week, I'm sitting in this app in a prison cell in Pendenville. And it's all graffiti like fucking Peter was there. And I'm looking around this cell, mum and Jack, it's all fucking cockroaches everywhere. Pendenville, if you know Pendenville. And I'm just thinking my life has just gone shit now. You know, I know what's coming. I know that I'm going to lose my ass or lose all my money. And the relationship with my kids is going to go Pete Tong, simply because I'm going to be able to see him for the next four years or whatever it's going to be. What was Kate Moss like? She was really nice as it was, really down to earth. I met her quite a few times. She was just really nice people. My girlfriend was Sadie Frost's sister, Sunshine Frost. I believe her name is a bit of a mouthful. But yeah, they were really nice people. Really good company. I met Dave Bourne and it was their dad. He was the guy that actually painted all the Rolls Royces for the Liverpool band, The Beatles, for years ago. He was a character. There was all characters. I met Sean McGregor. I went to Sean Pertrie's wedding. It was a great experience meeting all them. It was actually just like us. I used to go ice skating, go to the theatre. No one knew what I was about. At that time, we had a career company in my pals. They thought I was at a career company. Everything was sweet. I was having a really good life. In the meantime, I had another separate life selling this gear. As I said, in that evening, I'm sitting in the cell after spending three days in the police station. I'm looking around and I'm thinking, fuck. It's all gone there. Everything I have built up is going to go. That's criminals. We have a warp sense of fair play, as I told you. Now, they're going to take everything that I've nicked off me. Which is funny. For me, I put it a bit straight away. I wasn't going to worry about it. I knew they were going to take my ass. I knew they were going to take my money. I knew my girlfriend was going to take her ass. I knew that from that day forward, I was on my jack. It was, I was on my own. You got done with proceeds, lost everything? Lost your girlfriend? Lost everything, yeah. Within a space of six months, she was gone. I think the relationship was based on cocaine. Of course. You get used. I always say it makes me crazy for people. But everything's frequencies and energies. If you're doing gear, if you're robbing stuff, you're a low-vibrational person and acting all these other wannabes, other people with leaches, and when that shit goes, they go. I think it's definitely a price to be paid for being a criminal. Of course it is. If you live that life, if you've got a wife and a kid, we all come up as criminals and we make really nice girls and they have expectations of us and they have expectations of me. We have a few kids. We make a nice home. Everything that we say we're doing for you, we're doing that. We're then going out every night on the piss. We're meeting girls. We're taking drugs. What started as something good and honourable and then turned into something of any shit. I found myself doing that. I left my girlfriend. I then moved into this relationship because there were celebrities. There were nice houses. There were lovely cars and everything. But the whole relationship was built on cocaine. By yourself there, you've been through the abandonment. Your mum passing you away. So it doesn't matter how much money you had, how big your house was, how big a celebrity it was because you had that fear of they're going to leave me. So after maybe three months down the line you would've jeopardised that anyway. With the cheating you would've had something they're going to leave me anyway. So I'll fuck them up first kind of mentality. I think because I had lots of addictions. I had sex addiction. I had coke addiction. I never had a robbery addiction I could imagine. I could never get my head around it because I could never deal with it. For me I just I had lots of girls because I had an argument with one of them and I could move straight to the next one. Even if I had a long time girlfriend I'd have three or four in the wings because when you talk about abandonment I'm not prepared to have an argument and sort out a problem as a criminal because what I'd do I have an argument with her and I say oh I'll fuck you and I'll see you later and I'll go to this one. It's been all day there and all night there and I'm being loved and I'm being okay and I go back to this one and say listen if you carry on I'm going to go. She forgives me and it all starts again but I was never in a musician I put myself in a musician where I could never be unloved again. So if I had a girlfriend there's some nights I would cause an argument so I could go on to the other one so it was kind of there for you caused an argument it's you it's pushing me away but really it's fucking us it's the wrong you and do you not mean and troubles the more you do it the more you don't learn yeah of course. I actually for many years thought I was right I actually thought I was actually in the wrong and I spoke to my ex-girlfriend the only person that gave me somewhere to live when I came out was my ex-girlfriend believe it or not. She was married to someone else and she actually because a few things happened doing grinding and everything girls she actually offered me a flat which has still touched me to this day and she introduced me to my current girlfriend which is you know good. There are as good people out there that she's the exception. So when you came out after the sexier sentence for the coke what happened to your life then? You know what I came at I was bitter I was angry through my prison system I had quite a lot of trouble with the screws you know to cut and take orders I spent quite a lot of time in the block and I was angry I was angry at them I was angry at my life I was angry at losing my girlfriend I was angry at losing my car, my house, everything and I was back on the street with nothing I soon realised that everybody I had helped out for the years had all moved on you know they were now sending the gear that I used to give them and they weren't going to give me anything because the last thing they wanted was to give you an hand up so it was about finding something different that I was good at so I reverted back to type I went back into the robbery game but I spoke to a lot of people in prison and I realised very quickly that a lot of people were getting shot on the eyeballs so if you were being ready I'd done a bit of work and the minute you turned up you're going to get shot if you take a gun to work you're going to get shot and you're also going to get 25 years so it was about thinking of a new way to earn money and I can always remember sitting in prison watching The Oceans 11 Stull Heist and I thought what would be great if I got out and got a little team together got some police uniforms a dog and actually just go into places with warrants and actually do it right so I came out I got involved in a few things I raised some capital and then I got some vans, some cars some ID, some uniforms and then we went to work I got one of my friends he's 6x4 one of my other powers x army another of my other powers they're like bulldogs they're there they're our core guys and I can trust I've known them all my life so we went in and started we put our toes in and cut underground cut underground now this is good then we started doing wear asses bonded and that and then we came across Verizon Communication Centre in King's Cross we were told we were told by a lot of firms it was a high risk job and it was one that shouldn't be approached simply because there was a police station there was a police station at the other end and there was Albany Street on the other side and behind it there was a canal so there was no way out there was only one way out and it was a rack round for the old bill as well so it was deemed you know it was this one old job you can't do so that entesian even more that tease you even more that someone says a job couldn't be done so you've kind of got that fucker I'll show them I think because I was so angry because I still had a lot of resentment for the old bill one for nicking me I don't know why but it just is I actually went out of my way to actually because I nicked everything off the old bill without the vans or anything we got everything I've also done an idea with Darren Brown that was my thing he had an illusionist so I got all the ideas done and then going down there and reading because I read the sites there was one in places it was like Fort Knox 24 hour security 8 security guards biometric alarm systems key pads everything it was in air pressure doors that works and we come up with just a different way that most people were doing things at that time we went and got ourselves an old station we bought a couple of vans, a couple of cars we kicked them out and we got the uniforms and we went down there we had to look at it for a few days over that period and we realised that the only flaw in the whole system was the fact that they were still opening that door when people knocked on it and that was the weak thing so we went down there pulled up on the believe it or not when we pulled down in the first time there was a cop car that came behind us a real old bill we was all dressed as old bill and the next thing we looked in I looked in the wing mirror and there was a real old bill behind us and all of a sudden the lights went on and I always remember that feeling I looked at my power and I felt my stomach go over and then I was like fuck we got to do this otherwise we were not going to be able to get out of here and all of a sudden he's gone round us and he's gone down the road so we went past the place and we had to drive all the way round again five minutes it took us because we had radios we said a bolt a bolt a bolt you know that's all I heard let's get the fuck out of here and I said no no let's just carry on there now we're going to do this so you know me and my powers ex-army he was driving pulled up into the curb pulled up it was about 40 foot from the curb to the front door so we pulled onto the pavement right up to the front door car pulled by the side of us and the dogs came out and we knocked on the door and I just said like we believe we've got information to say that there's someone up on the roof and we're going to come and have a search a place and they opened the door and then we walked in now we took the biggest the two biggest guys around the corner and then I said we we have information that the guy that came through is dressed as one of you lot is a security guard so for my protection and my officers' protection so I'll find out who you are so after a little bit you know I'm the head of security bollocks they went alright no problem so we cuffed them up sat them on the stairs and then what we did was when I walked back in we just took all the rest of them because they were sitting behind the monitors they monitored the old gaff and we just took them out one by one and cuffed them and done it then we got a few maintenance people then a few cleaners when I looked around I think there was about 16 people on the fucking stairway and then we said we're going to take the dog around and searched the buildings but you know just calm down no one's going to get hurt he's going to be sweet and then so we went to work we had one guy on the desk as I said we actually went into the wrong room we actually pulled a computer chip which turned off all the another security firm that was looking at it and then they phoned up and they said what's going on we said there's been a surge in the system and they'll be up and running in another 45 minutes to an hour and that was that they put the phone down and we had an hour we knew we had an hour then so that bought you more time you know what yeah just by being called not disappearing and asking the phone it kept the job alive and this was estimated of being a 5 million pound haste what was it motherboards motherboards it's like a mainframe computer so if you look at a server in a normal office block that one server can probably do the whole place so if you imagine a server could probably do a whole country so you know these ones they were 32 chips in each one they were $120,000 a piece and they got about 8 or 10 in each server so if you consider in a phone you can send something you can send a spaceship for the technology in this apparently we shut down three countries which they weren't happy about I think it was Morgan the Morgan foundation exactly whatever it is the bank people we shut down but we spent an hour in there we kept everyone reassured and then we just went in now drilled it all off we kept everyone nice and calm I think we had about 15 bags then with washing bags and stuff and we just walked them out to the van and then I called it and said like it's go so we took one of the dogs went out and then I was the last one out of there and I looked at it and I just shut up shut the door up and then we got in the van and we were gone it took us about 40 minutes to get to where we was we went and dumped all the gear got rid of the cars, burned them out burned the vans out and we met up about one o'clock in the morning after we'd done everything we got rid of all our gear put it all in bags so we can burn it and that was the first time we sat down you know there's a certain bit of camaraderie whether it's counting our money or whether it's doing a job but it's also a way to unwind you have a laugh and a joke you start talking about the job and then within an hour you've had a drink, everyone's happy we know we've got the prize we know we've got to wave it the most important thing we've got to wave it at anyone which is great for me that was it was a job I'll never forget because it was my birthday the next day I always remember I remember waking up and I got a phone call my phone didn't stop ringing from loads of people in the area and they all kept saying that Verizon got done last night so what do you mean I've been asleep, wappened so it's foreign firms come over they're like a Russian firm they've come over here they've done this job and it's all over the fucking television it's all over the papers they call it the real origins 11 job and I just laughed I thought you know what it's such a life I said fuck you know and the next phone call the same thing and one of my mates phoned me up he said if you heard about this job he said it ain't more than you was it so I said don't be stingy I was in my car and I slept away and that was it how was it from taking motherboards out to seeing real money in a bank job because it's weird it doesn't take seeing that and thinking that's worth money to actually getting real cash I think for me it's like it's when you've got money when you've got money drawing all that it's all there and then you've all gone with the parcel and then it's nice it's a warm feeling and you're part of something it's easy it's clean now there's no drama unfortunately with motherboards you now have got offences so now you optimize your risk of actually getting nicked because now you've got to go to people people that buy and sell gear really not as honourable as what we are unfortunately this time that we had pissed off the flying squad we pissed off everybody in the Scotland yard so they then put a strong team on us but we was oblivious to that it was only it was only about a week later my friends were doing another bit of graft the police came an officer got banged at another one got thrown out of the wall my friend got nicked and then because of that they then done known associates and because he had a police uniform one at a time they then showed my picture as a friend to all security guards and that was the end that was the end for me this is the ring leader this is the guy that done this and I can always remember I was at my girlfriend's house I always get up at 5 in the morning it's a jail thing and most people get weighed in in the mornings when the doors open so I always get up early because I see people getting weighed in with fucking socks and everything I was with tuna bottles and everything so I always get up early this is what I do and then I looked out the window and then I saw a guy I saw another guy, I saw a bird and these were all people I had never seen before they were just like plain coals old bill so I never even told my girlfriend she was in a bedroom she had a couple of kids in the house and I went up on the roof I was down the road I went straight across the roof it was one of these ladders that went down the side of the building I jumped about 20 foot down and as I walked through I saw more going in all the old bill, about 25 of them and then I spoke to her a week later and she said I went straight through the house they knew you were there so I said calm yourself Dan I ain't coming back and that was it I changed my phone and I moved up to Dunstable I met a girl up there started training I never thought enough of it I came down to see the kids I got a job in a gym training people and I was living on a canal boat as well and I also rented out a little cottage and I was living a fairly decent life so I was doing bits and pieces then all of a sudden I woke up I had come down to London and I got off at Westamstead I didn't realise at the time that they had all this facial recognition bollocks going on and it captured my boat and I had a hat on everything and even though I was aware of all the stuff that was happening I had a hat I just thought a little trick down being a drama and then I came back to Lee Graf went back to my little place I was staying in and I got up and I went and got a sign to eat and the whole street just came alive again you know, there was that moment again but this was different this time for some reason it was all in slow motion I was on a phone to my pal Dan in London and all of a sudden I saw this car coming to the wall it mounted the pavement and there was a brick wall out and I said to my mate fuck I threw the phone over the wall and as the car came towards me and as I turned around another one came and they smashed into each other and they tried to take me out from my legs and then I jumped up on the bonnet rolled over and then the van pulled up and then all these fucking old bill got out with a bag of clavars and it was like a fucking whammy and at first I actually was quite frightened I thought I was getting kidnapped it was the first time in my life I thought I've obviously upset someone and this is it, this payback but then I had the radios and then we got him fucking we got him we got him and they were clapping themselves and whacking themselves on the shoulders is it him is it him and I thought fucking no but I was actually quite relieved as a relief now that I've actually stopped going on a run and I went back to the Kentish Town Police Station I never said nothing to them all the way back and then I got to Kentish Town Police Station with my local police station and we've never really seen I to I build down there but they actually gave me a round of applause when I came in there they were all like that we finally got this prick and I made and they clapped me in and that was it you were the last to get caught I got next about nine months later and everyone get 10 and 11 you got the biggest sentence 16 nearly 17 16.9 for being a ringleader also I tried to escape from prison What happened when you tried to escape? Do you know what I went I went I got pulled out in a production production order so what he did it took me to Hybrion Hybrion Police Station there was a bit of building work going off there so they said moving down to Kentish Town so I went to Kentish Town they said well they had a little chat with them in there and I said you know they they said we want to talk to you about certain things but I said I'm not going to talk fuck we might as well send you back to Pentonville they said but first we want to send it we got to go on an ID parade so we're going to go from here to top them so I said all right coming in put me handcuffs on it must have been a rookie cop he never put them on properly it was a bit loose so as I walked out I could feel it I could feel it if I give this a tug it's going to come off in a minute so I got in the van I think there was an eight hole bill with me there the couple in the car in front three in the back three with me we drove to there and then I can always remember this this cop was saying you know what you're going to go away for a real long time brother you know what you can do yourself a favour tell us about everything tell us about all your friends anything you know you'll be getting six years you'll be out in three I said you know what brother I said I'll be out tonight I'll be out I'll be home I'll be out I'll be living the life again and he just said you prick and so we just said we had laughs we just laughed about it and then I went quiet they went quiet and when we got there we pulled into the car park and there was a little voice inside my head saying just fucking do it man go go go take the handcuffs off and go so I slipped them off and I put it back on again and I thought why I just have to you know I needed a bit of luck and I needed just a bit of time to get through this and there was this voice in my head kept saying don't do it you know it's not worth the hassle you know you're going to get done for GBH you're going to get done for this and it's going to be fucking murder and there's always that voice I've always had in my head for years in the bit that you know when I want a bit of work you can do this just fucking go for it the same voice was there and he just said go for it just fucking do it till so as it just happened the first car pulled up against the wall no one got out the second car pulled up against the wall no one got out I thought lovely the keys were in front when he knocked on the door walked in I'm left with two coppers and I thought you know what I don't know if I can open that van door because the central locking was saying because I was in the back anyway the guy behind me started reading the paper and then the guy in front of me for some fucking reason he opened the door and stepped down so I thought fuck it the cuffs were off and I went bam and I just whacked him on the chin he's on his aris and I thought I'm out but I've gone down I've gone round the corner and just as I got there three old bill were coming in through the gate and they put their hands up and they fucking come after me so I ran and jumped on a car on the bonnet on the roof on a van and jumped on the wall thought lovely I'm out of here now but as I went over the cuff I was still on my wrist got caught on the thing and I couldn't pull over and just enough time for someone to come up the car up the van and jump round my neck the next thing I knew I was on the floor between the car and the wall in a load of mud and they would have a little dig at me they broke my ribs on my shoulder and busted my eye and I was quite fortunate believe it or not because just at that moment my solicitor came through the door they had handcuffed me by this time and he said what's going on what the fuck is happening I said listen I've just got out of the van they just all jumped me I said I'm handcuffed and they said no he tried to escape blah blah and then I went back to Pentonville and then I got put in the patches yellow and green stripe I said I was off key I went down a block for a week and then I got back on the wing but while I was down a block there was loads of cockroaches in the block I've never been to Pentonville obviously great and a governor came down and I said look I can't live in these fucking conditions there's fucking cockroaches everywhere put me on the wing for fuck's sake and he just said don't tell anyone because they all want something and I thought you fucking prick but he had all these screws and everything so I wanted to do nothing on the wing and they sort of laxed the security on me my mate came and gave me some chickens and some food and all that and they left the door open but I didn't realise they were actually doing an inspection this day we know from prison inspections and they painted all the wing but they left my door open for some reason they left my door open but in the course of that week I was back I was collecting cockroaches because I remember sitting there and one of them fell on my face because it was a bunk bed one of them fell on my face in the night and they fucking drove me mad I'm living in a lap of luxury now I'm in a shit old fucking gaff and there's cockroaches everywhere so I started collecting them putting them in a bag instead of killing them I put them in a bag so I could see them and that sort of stopped me fearing them because I got a fear of creepy crawlers or whatever and then I saw all these people coming down the land and there's about 16 men, women and the governor and I could see him through the crack of my door and I remember he stopped right outside my door at a pool table and he was talking to me and I sort of felt fucky you know what that voice came again and I thought I'm going to have this cunt so I opened the door, walked up behind him put all the cockroaches over his head and he screamed and then I threw him all over all the women and all the geysers and all that and they all started screaming and running and I was laughing and I thought this is quite funny and the next thing and all the screws around me and they put me down a block and the next day I got shipped out at one o'clock in the morning and they put me down at the reception and I stayed there until the next morning and I think that took six of us to Wandsworth and they said you know what this guy needs some milk he needs to go and see a therapist or a psychologist so they signed me up to a psychologist and then this lady came and saw me and then for about six or seven weeks I started speaking to her was that the first you'd ever spoken to a psychologist yeah I've never spoken to anyone before turned out to see if Jelif he was definitely the catalyst to actually help you know for the first time in my life because you know I'd normalised my old man was an arm-rubber got down for a murder as well mum was a shoplifter everyone I knew was at it and I'd normalised criminally I'd normalised being in a kids home and I'd normalised being abandoned because I actually justified my actions by going to a home and working on a farm and that wasn't a bad trade-off I'd get a stay in London with my pals with glue sniffing and doing fuck all but I was now working on a farm I got a kid and everything so I sort of normalised it and said you know what I had the bad deal and I convinced myself that was the case but why I was speaking about I started to feel for the first time ever I started to understand it did affect me I was deeply wounded I never cried then I felt it even now feel it there's something about when you talk about your past your family, your mum my brothers and sisters I don't speak to them but I blamed everyone it was only when I started speaking that I started to realise I started to realise that the anger started to go a little bit and I started to cry there was feelings I never felt before and then I blocked it down I thought fuck this and then I saw her again and again over the course of eight or nine weeks and then we got on so well that she then mentioned a place called Grendel Underwood to me but in the system Grendel Underwood is like full of beasts it's full of the worst kind of criminal but there was a part of me that wanted to find out why I was capable of switching off I know that for being a father I'm able to be a really nice father in being carried away I can go in and be really nice and graze their knee or something I can then go out and do a nine rubbery it's like your kids, your own kids you would do anything for them you would help them, drop them off at work while the balaclava comes on in your harman potentially other father's kids the grief that causes them the effect of the trauma that they cause because like I say we touch on these jobs but we've got to think of the victims as well who suffer and probably still suffer as well for me that was really what started to happen I started to find out that I was able to switch off because my mum would be a normal mother and then she would start shoplifting so there was a link there it was a link about being abandoned and everything else why I felt the way I did so I've read up on Grendan and I thought I wanted to give it a try and I was up in Rhaill at the time then I was with Terry Adams, Tony Brindle and we were having a great time up there we had everything we wanted I was with him for quite a few months and the three old guys I know came there I've known him for years, I know him from the cross I know him from the Calais and they were all arm robbers they've all done 15 in 20 years and now they've ruined their 60s one of them was actually 70 years old these are like the Hatten Garden mob and I'm sitting here and we was all there having a cup of coffee and then they're laughing a joke and they're coming now there was a couple of young kids and they were talking about the job they'd done and I was sort of this bollocks and listened to all this again I saw these young kids looking at these and thinking you know what I want to be like to you and I'm thinking and I wanted to say why the fuck do you want to be like us why the fuck do you want to be like these they spent 25 years in prison already now they're going to spend another 8 and probably die in prison and I thought you know what I ain't going to do this no more I told Terry and Tony you know what I want to fucking go to Grendan and that's when I got a title for the book but I've read about it I remember Raisa Smith no shout out to no nobody's a Smith's been on the show absolute great guy his story is amazing and I said to no it was probably one of the best podcasts I'd ever done because of what he'd been through the bank robberies getting life losing his son in prison and then changing his life couldn't read or write learning how to read and write and now he's writing his own books publishing companies I love that shit man and that's amazing he went now and knowing that he had the capacity to change I knew I did, I knew that no matter how fucked up my head was and how I was as a person as a human being and capable of doing the things I could do there was always a part of me morally I was actually I never hurt women I never hit a woman in my life I never mess with old people if I noticed an old person near a woman I wouldn't go nowhere near it so morally I was function okay or you know rob anyone apart from what we were doing so there's a part of me if no one can do it so can I so I signed all the forms and a few months later they come back and said you've been accepted cos I read your book you sent me a couple of weeks ago I finished it coming on the way on the train down today for a man who the reputation you have the people that you know to be granted and the names and the stories from men raping kids killing kids serial killers people killing their mum and dad the people who were going to meet prostitutes and hit them with hammers and how was that then for a tough man like yourself to have the reputation to be surrounded by these fucking nasty nasty people I think for me it was about a mindset it was about saying you know what as much as these people are most of people you're ever going to meet and they've committed some of the most heinous crimes it's only about them it's about me and I said you know I'm not a rapist I'm not a paedophile I'm not a child kid so I can't really link in with these sort of people and their mindset I don't think I ever would but there was people there that were in for robbery there were normal murderers mainstream prisoners there were quite a few there so I knew I would be able to function with them and if they can do it no one can do it so the fuck could I have cos the first team you go there you're met with people maybe two or three people you don't really know their story but you can always tell a shifty fucker you can always tell someone it's not quite right but when you met them it's like everyone stands in a circle and they're telling you their crimes I've found it really odd for me the hardest thing in the world being a father is for someone standing in front of me and telling me they just killed a kid and that was the first guy I spoke to was a guy called Sam he said that he needed his girlfriend to go on out and he was so angry that she had gone out when he changed the baby's napa he was a little girl that he bent her back and he punched her so he broke her back everything he punched her I think he's had about 87 bruises and I looked at him I've wanted to kill him but the only thing that I could go back to the only tool that I had was my sarcasm and I said you know what mate I understand ya because I've got kills as well I've got little girls and I know it's spiteful they can be at 6 months old he sort of just went white and fucked off so for me using sarcasm was a way of getting through it but it didn't get any better because the next guy I met because it was about owning your offence you had nowhere to hide in Grendan I put my hands up but every time I spoke to someone it got worse and worse and worse I was raping old women I met a guy he said he met a prostitute and he bit her tongue off I can always remember the one that stood out of me was a guy called Gavin he said that he'd split up with his wife and they were going through a divorce but he decided to kill himself and he started drinking about one o'clock in the morning two o'clock and he started having a pill and gradually he was fading and then his daughter came down he had two daughters, one nine and one six and she said daddy what are you crying for? he said I'm going to heaven and she said daddy can I come and he said yeah and he started giving her a drink in her fucking pill and he was describing he was reliving it in front of me and he said she didn't pass that but she didn't die and she said I'm going to draw in the kitchen and put it over her head and she was scraping on my hands on my face and I thought God bring back a lot of emotions it just shows you how far you've come though so it does it shows you how far you've come so when you start thinking through all that and realise and wait a minute did you ever doubt that you'd made the right choice? that particular moment I was at I went against myself sitting behind the door and thinking you know and that's when I justified my criminality with him so you know what there's no way in a million years I'm like these fuckers and then I started saying I'm a criminal I'm a robber and I don't hurt people and I don't do this and I started justifying it and then I analysed it and I thought you know what he's done this he's a scumbag I could never do that but it was that I was waiting and then convinced myself to justify my whole existence by him you know why should I why should this guy stop me from actually finding out who I was so I wasn't going to blame him I wasn't going to think I was better than anything else I was just going to fucking put him aside and move on with the therapy and that's what I did and the next person I met was even worse the next person I met was even worse you know you got I was talking to people that that took a golf club to their 18 month old kid and killed him I was talking to the guys that I'd got to put a baby because I had an argument with my sister put the kid in a a pillowcase and smashed a fucking life on the side of the table and I'm actually doing um so how do you find out if you're getting through that therapy and trying to change your mindset but living next to that is that not like kind of chalking cheese it's like you're trying to get help and trying to change yourself but also listening to these stories about that's going to mentally scar your relief as well I think what it was and as much as I was going through that full process I think I had to go through it with them to learn tolerance because I was never a tolerant person I could never suffer fucking anyone it falls gladly on anything but I think being with them you know it gave me tolerance because you know what I could have killed them all I could understand why you went there's been moments of I went for them so many times where I wanted to go in the cell shut it down and kill them but you know I then had to take on both I've got kids because in your book as well I think you're very hard on yourself because you blame yourself for leaving your kids and doing armed robberies but then being with these people it realises wait a minute I'm not justifying any crime but it realises you're not really that bad a guy compared to some other people did it give you a wee bit of that mentality that you're not as bad as most people yeah you know the victimology that Grendan sort of churns out in the daily races that we've all got victims and we're all the same but the more I went through it I realised no we're not I'm not going to be an apologist for that or to anybody I realised that there is a difference between someone that rapes kids there is a difference between someone that rapes old women there is a difference between someone killed and old kids you know I'm not like them so I think we have to change the policy of Grendan simply because you can't group me in the same as any people How long were you in your sentence Terry before you went to Grendan? I was only in there just over a year you know I wanted to hit it quick I wanted to do something positive I didn't want to sit around in the system wasting my time going through the same old shit So what does this system act Grendan what's the policy what does it do when you go there the policy is you sign a compact you don't hit anyone you don't use any violence so what happens is a process you do an induction course I'm on that induction three months it's a three months induction most guys I met there lasted a week one lasted one day if you get first week, second week, third week and you see yourself getting through that three months so there's a little little things like going into the office and reading a paper in front of a screw you know I've never done that before that was always the enemy so that process was about humanising them getting to know them to speak to them and actually instead of calling them and calling them by their first name and then calling you by your first name so over that period it sort of it seemed to work also eating with other people there was a dining room now so I spent years and years in prison not speaking to anyone while I was eating it's quite surreal and for the first time in my life I actually wrote about how I felt so I gave me a pad and I wrote down how I felt how I felt about meeting the people the emotions and the votes in me and how I wanted to do them and as I read it back over the months I started writing things about my family my kids and everything else and for the first time seeing it in black and white I started to understand it so that that process of going now and also dealing with boredom for the first time because you wanted that to watch telly in the daytime you had no telly vision nothing so when I first got there was millions of plants around the fucking place and I kept wondering why is there so many plants, why is it so clean here and then I realised that boredom is something that I've never been good at is the reason I'd womanise or woman I take drugs and everything else but being there after a period of time you start to do things that you wouldn't normally do I started making cuttings of plants and implanting them I started cleaning up because I was so bored I started to then talk to people on a level because when you start talking about crime what happens when you meet criminals is that you relate to each other you have alliances because of who you know the jobs you've done in that area and all of a sudden you're actually talking to people or at the scum of the fucking earth but you're actually you're actually talking to them on a completely different level about their families, about work, about everything you know about psychology, about criminality and everything but the discussions you're having are completely different from the criminal side so over a period of that 12 weeks you start to develop different social skills you start working you start listening to all their crimes and all of a sudden you realise that you can't deal with this there was a few that couldn't and they went back to the system and I realised that after a few weeks I was capable of actually going to the next level I thought the next level was going to be a lot easier but it just got worse if I thought these guys were the worst of the worst when I went to the wing it was just got worse the things I heard was unbelievable How did you deal with that? You know what I just had to turn off I just had to say it to myself every now and then I would blame them for my behaviour every now and then I would I would want to do something to them but you know what it wasn't about them now I had gone through that process I had passed that this was about finding out who I was I had thought about my childhood experiences the traumas that I went through and putting that in the bed because over that period I watched grown men who were really angry and once they started speaking that little valve opened and that anger went when I saw it working because I didn't think it worked I went there probably for all the wrong reasons an easy life but as it started to work and I started to engage in it and I saw all the things happening I started to get a belief in it Is it better even though you're surrounded by the nonsense is it a better present is it more open and free than the other jewels You know what it's probably the longest bit of burgeon because you're out all day when you're in a cell when you're in a station time goes by you're out in a cell every day and you've got people coming to you and telling you out of the way you walked How's your suicide and stuff like that Do you know I've had quite a few of my mates commit suicide over the years in normal prisons I think I remember a good friend of mine Ashley killed himself I remember having a cup of tea with him we were both washing all our clothes because we had a washing machine this was when I was in a man he was as good as gold he had a year to go he had a year to go he was happy as anything the next morning I saw the the alarm went off and they locked me up I was right next to the office I see the screws come in I see the defibrillator go up I saw the ambulance people come then the helicopter landed everything just slowed down and then all of a sudden I see him come out on a gurney and that was really terrible but you deal with it I think there are parts of prison that really stick with you I remember talking to a young kid 21 just got a life sentence I was talking to him the night before in the hot play and he said you know what mate you will get better you will adjust we are quite resilient and you are evolving prison you do get on with it it doesn't matter where you come from a good education a bad education rich or poor prison is a leveler everyone is the same and in a very short space of time you will function on a completely different level there is an underworld of bollocks that goes on now and the same as an outside ear and you know what he seemed to perk up the next day he was dead you get to that stage where you are just thinking you just switch off you see someone one day the trouble with prison is you meet some real nice guys and you have them sort of relationships and you talk first time ever you start having social skills that you never thought you had and you have conversations that you never thought you would about your family, about your kids, about the future and all of a sudden that person has gone on the next day and then all of a sudden you get used to just leaving people leaving you and when someone dies it is exactly the same mate it could be your friend one day and they are dead the next and then all of a sudden you just that can make you just go against the system as well and fill you even more hate and rage because let's face it the system fills you as bullshit as not many people come out of prison and don't end up back it's only the very few to be blessed to not go back seeing you were ingrending Terry if it's only a certain amount of bank robbers and if there's more pedophiles did you ever feel victimised did you ever feel you weren't one of them so we don't speak to him I did all I don't think it ever changed the reason I wrote the book because there was a hierarchy there in most prisons the robbers and the normal cons ruled the roost but in Grendan they did the deviants ruled the whole place and the funny thing about Grendan is that they can vote you out they don't like it you get voted out so you have to sort of start working on a level you've never worked before you have to start making alliances with people that people are talking about but the thing I saw most of all is if you're faced it and fit or you walk the right way they voted you out so for me I felt there was a missed opportunity with so many people going through Grendan simply because they wasn't as devious as this mob they wasn't as deviant, they wasn't as manipulative I saw guys who I thought really needed the help being voted out for another reason and they didn't like them that's one of the reasons I wanted to expose that because I do believe that Grendan works on so many levels I think the re-offending rate for ex-Grendan is exactly the same as anyone in a mainstream prison that's not in any dispute because if it wasn't medicine that cured everyone everyone would be doing therapy but what it actually did is once you dealt with all the trolled traumas and everything else you actually felt a bit better you was less likely to attack someone, attack a member of staff commit suicide, sell a farm so there were certain elements of therapy that I thought would thoroughly work to that set you up to be a better person and gave you the tools to be equipped for getting out so you then started operating on a completely different level to set you up more so than people leaving prison because as you just said the rehabilitation process in prison is completely flawed we have a system in this country that takes you into a classroom with 10 men they put a pretty girl or a guy there and they put 100 questions on the board questions that you ain't got a fucking clue about because you don't live in that world and all of a sudden they ask you and you tick these boxes and you just answer 100 questions that you ain't got a clue about and then you spend the next six weeks at them telling you the answers to them questions and then they give you another test at the end of it the same fucking questions that is classed as a successful rehabilitation because at the front of it you never answer anything but after that six weeks you know all the answers so all you do is you memorise it and you move on to the next course it's just the same course, different name enough ever happens it's the same thing with education inside prison we have guys going in prison and they're really intelligent they've had degrees they've had all the opportunities in life these are the 60% that go to the education department these are the 60% that do the college and the degrees in there because they're manageable and the 40% that are on the land and the jobs that can't read, can't write or can't do anything they don't get the opportunity to go to the classroom simply because they can't manage these guys because they're some private providers that actually do all this everything's done on test, test, test they get accredited for it and the more they do instead of having a guide that can't read they then go for the guide that can do and they put them in front of the test paper another one done so they've learnt in prison we've got all these guys coming in we've got all these guys through and these guys are going to take advantage good luck to them but we're missing a golden opportunity to return these 40% back to society and stop that revolving door of recidivism simply because we're missing that one key element is taking the time to actually educate these guys cater for their needs, get them a job educate them and give them a bit of self-worth that 40% won't come back in again and the prison population will go down because this 60% that keeps going forward will never come back it's just this 40% that keeps going back all the time How long were you in Grendan for two years? I was in it just over two and a half years I think, just under two and a half years Is Grendan for once they think you're better they release you back into other prison or is it when you do something wrong you're straight back out I don't think Grendan has got a policy that you'll never you'll never fixed you'll never cured they've solved their self of any responsibility you could be there two years, three years, four years five years, six years if you're there five years, six years, whatever for me you just you've heard it all, you've done it all and basically what you're doing is you're living you're actually having an easy life because you're then taking up position of someone else could have had I met lots of guys that have done six years, eight years there and within a couple of months they were all nicked again I came out with five guys that I kept in touch with murderers and everything else that have been there five and six years they're all back inside now so you know you can't gauge someone's success on the amount of time they do now I've done the time that I felt that I had achieved what I wanted to do I was more empathetic I could feel the empathy towards everybody I cried at the drop of a hat every time I thought about my kids I cried I knew that I was ready and then all of a sudden we had an influx from the serious personality of these audio units they're all rapists and they were the worst kind they were coming on when you've done therapy you then have to give something back that's the ethos there you then have to look after these new guys coming in you have to input your what you've learned but you know what six or seven came on to the wing on to my group one of them went to a woman in the back of her car he went the kids went to the back seat so I said how the fuck can they be a wife and then another one came on at the ninth point and I thought I can't fucking do this I've done my therapy I've learned what I had to do I've engaged on so many levels so I told my daughter I'm going to phone you up tomorrow I'm writing a book called Living Amongst the Beast with that, the security department will hear and I'll be out of here by the end of the week and low and behold I said it, they had a commitment the next day for me it takes about six months to do but they arranged it overnight and I went in there and said listen I know what this is about and I said you know what I'm writing a book and this is what it's called and they said that's quite derogatory that name what do you think everybody and I was quite fortunate that one of the guys who chopped up a bird you know cos you stole a bit of coke of him you chopped her up and he said well I'm a beast I was quite relieved that he said it and then someone else said I'm a monster so I said well that really answers the question didn't it really? the book is accurate and that's why I'm going to write it when I get out of here and I said you know what vote me out everyone cos I'm out of here today The scary thing is Terry man anything you put your mind to you do it no matter if it's robbing a bank that can't be done no matter if it's writing a book no matter if it's saying you're going to change your life everything you put your mind to you do it and that's the beauty of life obviously you can channel your energy down to negative ways but if you come and understand your childhood where that's all your mum now maybe that's all her mum now they're just passing it down from generation to generation but the fact that you know there's something not right here I want more out of life the fact that you're willing to put yourself in amongst hell to try and learn and educate cos you wouldn't have got that in another system if you're surrounded with other torags you're going to learn from them you're going to come out and go straight back into other work because when you get out of prison they just gave you a tent is that correct? yeah I went back into the system first of all when I left there when I was in Grendan I didn't realise actually what I was actually learning there's only one I left there and all the pressure cos you know what 365 days a year 24 hours a day pressure on you it was only when I left there I went to Swellside that I realised when that pressure was on and I saw all the reinforcements I see everyone's behaviour is in technique I saw everything before it happened that reinforcement everything else people's emotions, sadness, happiness everything and I was able to help so many people by what I learnt there so that was quite a good feeling what was it like getting back to a normal prison? do you know what it was it was a relief for one to get out of Grendan it was also quite daunting cos now I was going back to mainstream prison which is I remember walking into Swellside and the first thing I saw was some guy get jugged with an oil mixed by a mixed race guy and all these faces peeled off and I thought fuck me I'm back now and then after a year there I was there and I thought I've got to move on luckily I was coming to the time when I was moving but just the violence the violence that goes on now when you're nervous that you are going to get sucked back in and everything that you learned would have went to shit do you know what there was unfortunately there was no way I could get sucked back in simply because I saw it coming I think once you go through that process you have a desire to change I think it's very hard to get sucked back into it cos you actually start seeing it for what it was I can always remember a guy coming to me and said I know one of your pals and this is about that criminal values again I know one of your pals is a really great guy I would give my right arm for that fella and when I got out of prison last time he took me on a bit of work I knick 30 grand in one night he told me the guy's name I went lovely I said you know what I'm going to tell you exactly what happened when you got out he said I got a bit of work for you but I can't do it myself but I can drive and this is a normal scumbag routine parasitic lifestyle it really is and I told him that and he said yeah I said I've been there before if he was your friend he had to give you some money after doing 12 years in prison so you can go and see your family but what he did he took advantage of you and put you on a bit of graft after you leave in prison that's not your friend brother so when you start having these epiphanies about you realise that I've got some great criminal friends I'm not going to lie I love my friends to death but the criminal code ain't worth a bollocks there's no such thing as honour amongst thieves there's no such thing as that we're protecting the belief system that really is made up from fucking idiots it's an illusion so when you got out when you were going through your transitions that you felt was if you were changed one more thing about Grendan you were singing Christmas carols on stage how did that feel for being a bank robber well known to be singing Christmas carols were you dressed up with anything playing bingo was worse but I was actually playing bingo which I've never done before one of the ladies come to me and said Terry can you do I was always a bit of a dab around at singing I got an opera voice but what happened I got offered to do it and I went down there and I started singing and you know what is a bit of a scapism I've also done poetry not poetry I've done Shakespeare's to be or not to be the whole thing, the whole sonnet from memory and it was just nice to get up on stage and do something completely different but it also set me up when I went to Stamford Hill because when I got there the resettlement prisons are not as equipped to deal with anything there's nothing there in a resettlement prison all it is is bang up and all it is is staying on the plot but I was lucky enough to to do a play there and write a play with some guys and we actually went and done the Royal Colts went and played the Royal Colts and apart from doing Grendan this was probably one of the other things that I really enjoyed there's a camaraderie with guys that walk into a room that don't know each other they're all nervous at everything else and in the six weeks they write they've written a play and they've all bonded together and we went to the Royal Colts but that feeling of achievement it was something I could never the only other time I felt it was on a bit of work so I've gone from doing that to actually feeling the same sort of forum by doing the same positive which was great so when you get out of prison they just gave you a blue tent and you went through the process my probation officer said they promised me they are and they delivered nothing they said that they had a room for me and on the last day before I went out they said sorry we haven't got anything for you and it could be six weeks, 12 weeks but it's down to you now to make your own way so she actually said to me if you give me the postcode to a bench we can come visit you and you know what after that I just thought that's it fucking now I'm going to do it myself I think it was a kick up the ass I actually needed so I got a tent delivered there and I set it up outside the front gate and I said well I'm going to stay here so I got in the tent and I stayed there and then I got moved on from the screws so how was Leith then after the 1630 were you ever going to get back into work or were you a completely changed man do you know what you know when I first came out I had all the intentions of going straight you know I was and then life issues come your way you know signing on, can't get a job because you've got a criminal record and all of a sudden I was that close never had nowhere to live and then my ex-girlfriend put me up early so luck number one I never had no money so I'm not doing a bit of painting decorating so luck number two so now I had somewhere to live in a bit of dough I then went to church met some really nice people got baptized so now I've sort of changed my friends you know all the people that are normal associations came down off me everything and I had to turn it back but now I'd gone on the path doing something completely different you know something good something that's going to keep me out of prison it was about me trying to find something that would keep me on that straight and narrow and unfortunately we had a smack of killings in the area a couple of young kids got killed from my girlfriend's school and in the space of four or five months we had six kids got killed three in one weekend and one of them was a girl but most of the time we'd set up a camp against violence and what I was doing was just going around to schools and going around to communities and telling the kids we shouldn't be feeding into a police system that protects the murderers of our kids in this community there's no honour in stabbing an unarmed person or an unarmed kid you know if someone's a pedophile and they're killing your kids the first thing you're going to do you're going to name this kid but when someone stabs our kids in this community we all fucking go stum and we protect this because we protect an honour code that only protects them so I spent my last few years teaching people in this area to not believe that system and believe it or not it's gradually got a lot better we've had marches I don't know I was in a crime knife campaign or task force with Keir Starmer unfortunately like most white papers they go into nothing and they fade into nothing and nothing ever happens but the people have been impaired in the area there's lots of workshops now for kids the campers against violence have got their own office and they're giving out apprenticeships for the kids we've got a website where people go on there and offer jobs and cancelling everything for people that have been abused so you know what something good came out of what I did after leaving there I then helped start with the band of brothers in the area because I noticed that there was lots of men that isolated themselves so we brought that to the area it's an induction weekend but it's also about men trusting other men it's only four men and once you have that trust with each other and we then ask you to share them life skills with young kids to try and mentor them and all that so that's going now, it's going really well and also an ambassador for the forward trust people have got drug problems and they want to change their lives we direct them to them and they've got jobs and there's a lot of situations and companies that employ ex-offenders which is really fantastic you've got to find it, being an ex-offender even though we do our sentence we also get penalised because as soon as we say we're an ex-offender we can't get a job so there's lots of companies now that have taken on ex-offenders and realised in the potential of them guys that they can work and they do put 120% in more than most people because they want to prove to everyone that they can move on with their lives that's amazing Terry that's what I'm saying all the misery you've been through in your own life the trauma you've caused the trauma that you've felt as well to be helping other kids to try to save lives and try to get people jobs that's amazing man, you should be proud very proud because it takes courage and guts to change it takes courage and guts to be a bigger man and say wait a minute I've fucked up I'm sorry I want to change that takes so much courage everybody talks and there's a lot of shit just people talk no many people have put it into action to actually make the sacrifices and the changes so I take my heart off to you for that brother I think I said I went and met someone who was born against Christian and they said there's a couple of words if you give yourself over come to me and let me do the rest and I've got ties but since then my life is so much freer and I'm happy to do the things the man of effort I used to put into criminality was 24 hours a day the man of effort I put into what I do now is 24 hours a day but the rewards are so much better we've now got a company called scoff mills with my daughter and her boyfriend we do nutritious fields for gyms and people that want to change their lives nutritiously and everything else but we started out about 18 months ago and it was going really well and unfortunately we had the coronavirus started so we had to shade down but instead of just sitting back I was driving around and I kept seeing all the homeless people and I was looking on the telly and all I kept seeing was we were harassing them all the homeless and I thought no you ain't there's loads of homeless people around here so I got in touch with Vicky Patterson and Geordie Shaw I thought he was a good friend of ours and we phoned up all the companies all loads of them loads of different companies I won't mention all their names but you know what they all donated everything of soups, milk everything I then went to a company called Yahire and I met the guy down a really lovely fella he's got 25,000 square feet of wearers and he said listen you can have the wearers and you can do the packages and make packages up for all the people in the area if you want so we assumed that we was going to get a bit of gear it was going to last one week and we were going to go and feed the homeless and everything else but we got so much gear we apparently got a wearers for the food and over this ten week period we've managed to do 10,000 care packages for the aged UK the food banks and the homeless we've actually been giving them to the homeless do you know how rewarding that is it's the best feeling in the world I've been giving to the same people for the last ten weeks I've been knocking on old people one guy was 100 years old he couldn't get out and a lady phoned me up and said tell I put it out on Twitter and she said this old guy living down in Camensan he can't get out I said don't worry I'll go down there and I knocked on his door he took about 15 minutes over the door and I gave him this care package and everywhere I'll give him the next one that was so rewarding in the food banks single mothers were going down there who never had nothing for me it was just so rewarding it was back breaking doing it but what we achieved over the ten weeks and doing something productive giving something back to the community after taking for so long you couldn't buy it it's enough peace and cheeses that is the best thing in life of three if you can help someone that can't help you back then you can't buy that shit even though you're helping others it's a great benefit so it's rewarding to do the suicide stuff the homeless stuff helping other people that you can't it's a gift of life to try and help others no matter how much you steal or how big your house is all that shit is irrelevant if you're helping someone else that is the currency and the availability that you can never buy anywhere for me it's also a way of reinforcing what I've done so the more I do it's like topping up a car the more I do I keep topped up the minute I go down and down and down and down so I ain't doing nothing good is the minute I'm going to go back to that life so I'm going to continue to do good I'm going to take companies to help people I do gardening for people now I don't get paid for none of this but you know what the reward is so I can't even describe how I feel it's like peace as well Terry and my wins so all the time even though ant of you are a lot of criminals and like I say we hate authority we hate the police but camera always wins they'll say that bastard set me up when I get 15 years but they already got away with 20 or 30 other jobs do you know what I mean so this is what it is we have a sense of fair play you know we we take and take and take and take and the minute we get called we feel how I'm done by do you know what I can understand most of the guys I've worked with over the years because of the way we've grown up and we learn from our parents so we know if the persons adults and the people that you respect the people that are showing you how to do this you don't go any other way most kids that are 11 years old 12 years old they get to that age and they've got a father figure there and that father says you know listen from today you don't hit Jonathan or Peter or whatever you know you must talk and you've got to go to college and you grow as a human being you grow you get civility you get empathy you get social skills unfortunately in our world when you're wrong you're right because you've got violence and vests you've got no one to teach you anything apart from the wrong way so you then hang around with people that are feral like yourself and we create our own rules and regulations and laws and we live by that unfortunately we need to we need to educate people. I still know guys that are 50 years old taking cocaine and Charlie and womanising everybody else and since I've been at four years I tried to explain to them about their lifestyle and everything else and they'll go fuck her I'm all white I think I've had four of my mates dice that have come out but a lot of texts they've had they're in the coma for a few weeks and the only takes something in your life to catalyse so mine was going to prison so to turn my life around I don't drink or smoke or do anything anymore unfortunately they're 50 and 60 years old doing all this and they have to have an heart attack before they wake up but by that time it's too late because they can't function properly and so for me why I wrote the book was actually trying to empower my friends empower my family and just empower everyone to actually start looking at their behaviours and get that transition period from the puban as a list to actually coming into being a man or a woman but a lot of people are in denial Terry it's like if someone came to you 15 years ago you'd have totally fucked off so it's just because we know how good it feels to wake up early to have some meaning to have some purpose to go and help others to create something like I do with a show and I love this, this is very good for me speaking to you is very good for me other people who's watching who realise the gambling, the womanising done it all the bullshit but when you start feeling better and you kind of put all that shit to the side when you start telling other people to go he's fucking forgot himself he's crazy more people thought I was going more crazy because I was doing a spiritual route when I was actually a fucking mad coat kid and womaniser they thought I was worse because I was talking about spirituality and energies and frequencies and reading books called The Power of Now and you can heal your life you can heal your organs and people are like he's fucking losing his mind but look where you are now but again I don't like to always try and plant little seeds in friends head because I don't want to preach because it just pushes him away do you know what I mean, where they go he's fucking forgot himself I think you've got a lead by example yeah I think so, actions speak louder than words and you're doing it as well as myself to create change and that's where it leaves a legacy that's where people stand up but two or three years later down the line we're going to see them all now I still see do you know what, the guys I spoke about Terry and Tony and all them guys I still see them all they've all moved on, they've all changed in their lives they're all doing good things now one of them has ever said to me about going to Grendan no one has ever come to me and said you know what you did was fucking bad they've all said what you did I could never do what you did putting up with this mob you must be fucking crazy for one institution like no one's business I went through hell now but you know what there was a massive light at the end of the tunnel coming through that tunnel to the light was brilliant just getting back to what you said it's a hard decision for everyone who's in the criminal world to change simply because I can remember sitting on the beach in my bay and this guy came along with he was at a plaque or a board on his thing saying Jesus love you change and repent and we were the new very rich we had loads of money there's nothing would have dragged me to go to where that guy is but now I'm where he is so how do we change the mindset the new row she's criminal that I've got everything to actually come in over to here that's the million dollar question again I think it sounds crazy for people watching but some people are chosen I think to go to the dark places now if you never went through all your darkness as a kid the trauma, the pain, homes, prison you wouldn't be where you are now to help other people so sometimes always say it sometimes you need to go to the darkest places to find your light you went through hell Grendan sounds like hell for me to be there you went through the fire the pits of hell to be risen to who you are today to be helping others doing homeless work helping abused women getting people homes writing books that shit is special and always tell people you must thank the past or else you only learn from your trauma I've had this conversation people said if you had to do it again you know what I've got five beautiful kids I've got eleven grand kids I've got a beautiful dog and a beautiful girlfriend you know what I've had a really checkered life but you know what the experiences that I've had and I've continued to change people's lives and the talks that I'm doing we always said if you can change one life then it's worth it you know what we continue to change lives every day from what we do so you know what I'm going to continue to change lives I'm going to continue on the same vein as I am now and I'm going to continue to not defend the belief system that you're going to kill our kids so you know where can people get your book Terry? the books on Amazon is a little story the prisons have actually banned this book because it's called Living amongst the Beasts they've actually told me that the content is okay it's actually a learning book it's not something that's actually a decrying a prison system or the people in Grendan because as I said I can't function on their level so I'm not going to have an opinion on them but I do believe it changes so we've got Living amongst the Beasts is out on Amazon and on Kindle Unlimited but I'm also releasing another book this week the same content is out but it's called the Grendan Grendan's therapy the inside story it's going to be on Amazon it should be out on Monday this Monday perfect we will leave all the links for that your social media as well Terry Facebook at anything is that your prison number? yeah there's a link to that I always remember my prison number if you go at Facebook at anything just Terry Ellis I've also got a book club what I've been doing is because we sold over a thousand copies in the last month which is unheard of for self-publishers so the book has gone word of mouth the response to it has been overwhelming for me simply because it's empowered lots of women believe it or not women that have got in contact with me and say it's empowered them to report their abusers it's empowered them to write books it's empowered them to start talking about it and men as well we've had quite a lot of men but the Facebook site is called Living amongst the Beasts your views matter and everyone who's booked the book and I've got celebrities on there and they're sending their pictures in with the book and they're telling me exactly what they've thought of it and what they're getting out of it people who expected me to to lambast it and decryde the therapy but if something works I can only champion it so for me I honestly think therapy works but it's not the medicine that cures the deviants and if it's in your nature it's not going to happen it's not the medicine for rehabilitation but it definitely helps you move forward with your life so yeah yeah fair play here see before we finish up see before you got your 16 Terry did you make a deal or did you take it through trial I never done a deal they offered me a newt in earing and as I said my mates got 10s and 11s I went on a newt in earing and they offered me 23 and I said well if I go guilty surely you've got to give me the same as them or less I've got to get it further and they said no because you're the ringleader so I thought I'd beat them on an appeal because if they give me 16 or 23 I'll be on appeal because of the disparity but unfortunately the word went in and they gave me a 9 and then they topped it up with a consec so I got less than my friends and then they topped it up with another one so you know what I couldn't win, I couldn't appeal it but you know what as much as I felt I've agreed by it I've never had the opportunity to write the book experience grinding and meet the people I've met so you know what in some statistics or way are you on licence? I'm on licence in 2025 that's a list you don't admit statistically I should be back in prison for years and years for as long as I can remember I was a statistic I didn't realise at the time though I thought I was different from everyone else I thought I was untouchable I lived above the laws that most people lived by but statistically I should be back in prison but I'm happy I'm living a drug free life now I've got a lovely girlfriend lovely home in spite of a system that sets men like me up to fail but the only thing that difference is if I was going to give everyone in prison and everyone out there if you've got the desire to change regardless of who's around you you will change you know what you need to stand up and be counted you need to be different from everyone else you need to just come away from it because there's only one one way you're going to go you're going to die, you're going to go to prison you're going to get stabbed, you're going to get shot and when you've seen it happen time and time again to your friends and I try to tell people this is what your life is going to be like why do you want to aspire to 20 years in prison so that's my message just change your life, have a desire to do it because we spoke earlier that is a lonely journey change but people need to understand no one is coming to chop your door and hold your hand to say if you're not your mum not your dad, not your brother, your sister no one, you need to dig deep and make the changes there's people out there you can get inspiration from including yourself and it shows that people can change but it takes hard work, it takes a bit of sacrifice and it takes a bit of courage to make the effort but it can be done and that's the beauty of life Terry I think everyone's got the capacity to change all you've got to do is have the desire to do it was there any shot on anything else Terry? I've said that as much as I can say for me I think if you want to move forward in your life and you want to create a better future of yourself lots of people I know that come out of prison they move to a different area because they think their life is going to change they get different relationships they think everything is going to change because I've gone here I've moved 100 miles away and there are a number of changes you have to deal with what's in there and you have to deal with what's in there before you can move on because once you do that you can live anywhere but until you fix the problems inside you're just going to move the problem from there to there to there so for me advice I'd like to give to everyone is to start talking about your traumas in life your relationships, your interpersonal relationships because once you deal with them and you put them to the side they're never going to go away but they're going to get a lot easier to deal with because you want it to to get angry so for me if you can deal with them and move forward that's what you need to do so talking, talking, talking and hopefully giving yourself a better opportunity in life listen Terence, it's been an absolute pleasure for the invitement at your home telling your story, your book was a fantastic read look forward to the second one all the best for you Shabra I look forward to seeing your journey thank you, God bless