 It's going to have to give me a break at some point. Surely that must be... That must count for something somewhere in my life. You're weighing up this survival of, like, what can I do? How am I going to get through this? Someone's got a problem. They've got a problem. Let's just deal with it and deal with it. So, Rich, how are you, brother? I'm good. Thank you, Chris. Really good. Thanks for getting me on here. Do you remember Wright said Fred? Yes, I do. Yeah. There we go. I'm just one of you. I don't know. They both looked identical to me. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Goodbye. I'm too sexy for my podcast. Yes, brother, it's so kind you came on. Thank you. You have the esteemed honour that we have a wonderful new producer on the podcast, Ben. If you watch this. And you are the first person that Ben went, right, get this guy on the show. Really? Wow, that is a privilege there. Absolutely. Well, I saw some of your Facebook stuff. You're clearly a nice guy. Let's just say from the beginning for people watching, the veterans community is just all over the shop at the minute, especially with social media has made it also divisive and a bit nasty to be honest. Yeah. My concern and I know yours, Rich, is the same as we're in a suicide epidemic of our brothers and sisters, right? Yeah. And something needs to be done. Yeah. And the old school method of just hiding all our misdemeanors or not so misdemeanors under the carpet. It doesn't work anymore. People need to talk about substance use. They need to talk about the laws that we have in this area in the country, which I think any half intelligent observer would say clearly don't work. Well, they work for the people that are making a huge load of money off it. Yeah. But at the same time we're in a situation where if our brothers and sisters can't come forward and say, look, I've got a problem or I've fallen in with this crowd or, you know, I started doing this thing and now it's got a bit out of control. Yeah. If all they're going to get is old sweats going, oh, you shouldn't do this and you should because that was the old school mentality. Yeah. We're just going to be putting more people in boxes or, you know, go into the bloody crematorium even more. So for anyone listening, it's called bought the t-shirt podcast for a reason. We invite interesting people that can add to our lives and that involves education. And enough said, Richard, just wanted to sort of lay the table because some people get confused in this area, but take it from the beginning, mate. Yeah. So, I mean, I served in the, I joined the third World Tank Regiment in 1988. Back in the eighties, it was a very different army. I mean, it all was very different back then. And I'll keep this part quite brief because when the Berlin Wall came down in 89, they start to reduce the size of the forces over in Germany, which is known as BAR at the time. There was a lot of disbandments, amalgamations. There are a lot of redundancies going on. So we amalgamated with new second World Tank Regiment in 1992. All this was progressive and seen as the way forward that the British army was going to move along by slowly withdrawing from from sort of Central Europe, Germany, and slowly reducing the number because there was no longer this imminent threat of a cold war. And the unfortunate thing, I think for a lot of time, we, you know, by this, this point I've done three or four years. Promotion was good. You would sort of move it along nicely with the, with the kind of plan to with your military career. And because of the amalgamations, we just slowed down things just ground to a halt. And at the time we weren't, I wasn't personally seeing the army giving me the future, which I'd expected from it. I was hoping to see any active service. I have been to Northern Ireland in 1990. We missed the first Gulf War or Iraq war, which was in 1990 early 91 because we're in Northern Ireland. And I thought, I'm never going to see anything. So I kind of thought, well, I'm not going to get promoted again, because it's all just ground to a halt. I'm going to get out. So really in the, in the sort of mid 90s, so in 94 and 95. So a huge amount of, of, I say soldiers, because that's from my perspective actually leaving the forces given up, handing in a notice and just knocking on the head because there wasn't really much of a career left. It's really slowed down. So I knocked it on head in 94 to get out in 95. And that's where the problem started. The army makes you, your military training makes you extremely confident in your abilities, which is fair enough, you need to be confident in order to carry out your role in wherever you're going to be. So I did a course with the S with the SPS for close protection standard course. It was great. It was fantastic with with the guys served with. It was a company called Task International were down in Maidstone for weeks, and then you add this other qualifications to already very confident character of our bodyguard on this and it just elevates your, your unrealistic expectations so high when you come out that you just think you're better than everything. And I just set it so that to fail because what I felt taken into consideration was on coming out the forces at that time there's also another, how many thousands looking for the same kind of work the same kind of jobs. It was really difficult, really, really hard to find steady work. However, I was lucky, I managed to get a job working with dad, who's ex police force, some colleagues of his doing surveillance, and I did some CP work. And this was fantastic it was kind of like the right job but what I wasn't really prepared for was that lack of belonging when I came out and missed that camaraderie that was part of the army. And although it was never the big one for being in the nappy bar just missed that, that sort of focus feeling of being involved with people all the time in a sense if you had something wrong or you were a bit skin or you had a problem. There's always someone to go to would listen to. Yeah, they will probably give you a slap and tell you to put in sort of self out but at least you least as someone to go to if you're having a bad time. And I kind of missed that sense of belonging that's such a big deal for a lot of guys who come out anyway. The thing I wasn't ready for at the same time was, I really enjoyed going out I enjoyed going out clubbing and partying, as did all of my civilian friends and what I wasn't ready for was this, this crazy dance scene, which used to be the rave scene back in the, in the 80s when used to go and find a field somewhere and pull up a lorry with leather speakers and everyone to get completely completely wasted. This illegal racing had kind of migrated into the clubs around the UK. And I was not ready for that. It wasn't a case of the, the, the drug side of it initially, it was more a case of, wow, what is going on here, everybody was just having such a good time. I was kind of stuck at the time as well so I was kind of still on the outside still looking in I was never really felt a part of this, this community because I was the one still on the door saying yes or no watching everyone else have a good time and I thought, is this what I've come out to is this is just what it is so I started put pulling away from the door on the weekend and I started going into the clubs and yeah I started getting introduced into into drugs. And I started using recreational drugs because any drug can be recreational if you use it for recreational use it's a it's something I thought so ecstasy was the one and and I got a bit I'm not going to condone this I can't condone it but for me when I took that first pill. I finally felt like I belong somewhere again, because for that duration of the effects of ecstasy, whether it be one two three or four hours. That the same as every other person in that room who's done that drug. So all of a sudden you belong to this group of people. So you get that sense of being a part of something. And that's that is that is a massive problem for girls who've been in the forces because you can easily turn to this and it's so false because you take all these individuals if let's say there's 100 people there and you're all completely wired to the moon on these drugs and you're feeling the same way the music and the clothes and you're all on the same level. It's so false because you've actually got to come back to reality. And the reality is you still have got a very little incomable these people around you doesn't mean they're not good people just means that you're just there you engage in this activity for a while you feel this false sense of belonging. It just goes it sort of sort of Peters out and then then it's gone and you left them with just your emotions, and that can be problematic and add this. Add sorry add to this your extreme risk taking behavior which is a lot of a suffer from we need to do something to satisfy that that risk is normality for us just just doesn't fit we need something while to make us feel normal again. I find that I was beginning to get introduced to the supply of the drugs, more so because I've got a business mind and a group of friends I was with at the time we always to engage in these activities on the weekend and go out and get wasted I use that word. We needed to find somewhere to get our substance from and I thought I'll do it. You know it doesn't seem can't be as bad as getting shot at or if I've done worse things in a nappy bar. You know so you kind of stick your hands first. How bad can it be and it wasn't all of those basic military qualities that you're given in in simple things like been dropped like doing a patrol simple standard stuff. Just apply those in that direction for this. And again not condone it please don't think I'm trying to say go out and do it use your squatty skills to do this because I'm not saying that for me, it felt so natural, because I've been doing surveillance I've been doing CP work I, I'd already done a fair bit of work in the civilian environment so to to use my military qualifications in a civil environment was already being applied through CP work and surveillance so this didn't feel any different. It didn't feel wrong. I know it's wrong, but it didn't feel wrong. I mean, if you, you've got to define what wrong is me for us it's very natural to carry a loaded weapon around a street which looks like the UK say northern Ireland that for me felt perfectly normal. The streets will look just like the ones outside your front door in the UK. That's normal for me. So this whole definition of normality and what's right and wrong is a very wavy line. It was for me, especially when the kind of half charged on on drugs on the weekend perfectly functioning within the week. So what I found was my CP work began to fade away because there was so many people looking for that work and needed to survive and along with really bad money management skills which I learned perfectly well from the army about how to spend a weekend million hours you spend it all on the weekend you've got nothing left but then you know you've got your muckers to pour you through the month you can go to the cookhouse and you're going to be okay aren't you going to survive. I slowly moved in to set an ecstasy and really for me it felt like a very that was a natural transition from coming out of the forces and I just slightly went a little bit left and I just gone completely sideways. And it was, it became a new way of life for me because it addressed all of the issues that I was dealing with because it gave me the risk. It gave me an income barely gave me an income because it was a lifestyle, and it was the lifestyle which replaced my military lifestyle. And I functioned quite happily, you know was never or never sell as an addict, which was because I didn't ever walk down the route of taking substances which were highly addictive. You know, it's not me I'm not addictive person. So yeah that's really where it went from there and it was just a lot of ecstasy cells up and down the country and it just grew and it grew and it grew. And really in 2002, I then opted to look into the cocaine market because ecstasy market really kind of there's not believe that there's not much money made on it you've got to sell a lot of those things to actually survive. And it only takes a couple of things going wrong and trust me things go wrong all the time. It's a very untrustworthy industry is the drugs game that people are out to rob you in all different ways they might want to rob you by giving you something which isn't worth the money you pay for they might just send some or any house to kick your door off and take the drugs from you or the money. It's problematic. And you're going to deal with these things on a, on a, almost on a daily basis and it takes its toll on your mental health I mean the only way I can describe somebody asked us a while I guess because I had some work done with the PTSD not from combat but from my nefarious activities. And we realized that to be involved in the drugs industry and to do it properly at certain levels and probably go into that shortly. It's a huge amount of stress it's like being an operational duties, imagine being over in Afghanistan. Being ready, you have caught always at the ready just in case something goes wrong. I've never been there I'm not I'm just using as an example for the lads currently and the ladies currently. Imagine being on that tour for 15 years. And that's the kind of stress the direct it never goes away. It never even when you go on holiday it never goes away. It's still there. Because even if you're not actively selling things, and you're still in that world. You might have a week off rather than a week off this week and they go on holiday with my wife and my kids. And you can't switch off because you've got your phone you every day you're waiting for a message to come through. We've got a problem so it's always been arrested your door's just gone off. We owe them money they did the problems are endless. And you don't ever get a chance of any downtime. No rest. That's what I think a lot of people involved in drugs you see them being very flash. You see them having holidays they've got the nice cars because in the back of their mind they must know that any minute that world's going to come crashing down around them. It doesn't make it right. It just means I think that's why they if they live by the sword they know they're going to probably come unstuck very soon. It takes its toll. Yeah I always used to say and this is not like not at all a judgment or value call but like if you deal substances, you're either going to die, or you'll end up in prison. It was always how it was right in my. What am I saying rich in my that I'm not including alcohol here which many of you people listening will know that I as a substance misuse specialist have to tell you the truth alcohol is the worst drug it just is. If you don't understand why go go and research the the effects of it on people go and research how many people die every day from from alcoholism and it's really not nice but taking the alcohol out the equation because obviously we all started when we was 18 and hitting it hard in the forces. The substance misuse area or the substance use area. I've got like too many years 25 years experience of it now both as a professional and as someone has experienced mental health problems so we're talking addiction, and someone like you say he's gone out and bloody good party and learn an awful lot about myself right. But just to pick back up on that point. Yeah, in all of that time rich, I've only ever known one guy. He's made it all the way through and it. Doing is it, and he's made quite a lot of money from it right. And I think the thing that probably saved him is he did around. So you never like went to his house or I mean, if you knew the guy obviously you did but he do around every at the same two days every week he do his round and I don't know the cops must have got his name, but. But yeah, it's like you say high stress environment and am I going to die today am I going to go get my door smashed in and my life changes. Yeah, you kind of get to six in the morning every morning and you kind of halfway thinking is this the day, and you get to house that you think, Oh right another day now I can get up and just move on. And isn't just your door smashed off by the police it could be another firm and that's why you have to be so secretive about your whole life, you know, and we talk on our CP courses that be consistently inconsistent is something I always did. That's hard work over so much time it's really takes a drain on your everything it's so much energy used in not being caught. You know that that's finally gone, you've got so much energy left in reserve to to apply in the right direction. It's quite liberating, you know, really makes a massive difference. Huge change to your life coming out of it, and you're right about saying, there's only two ways you're either either going to get dead or get caught. There's the other ways you might just make it through you might but it's very rarely when actually gets through that world and makes the money they want to and not have some kind of damage on route whether to themselves or the family. There's always going to be some kind of damage or some kind of collateral damage which you've got to manage or deal with and you've got to live with that. I think you have to be ruthless to get through that world totally ruthless and and that that comes in many different forms that could be ruthless as in extremely violent. You can end up being just sort of ruthless as in you don't really care about anyone around you so therefore if you do get caught, you may go down there would be an informant. And no matter which route you take you can end up very lonely, very, very lonely because that's just the nature of it. People just won't want to be around you or you'll either have no friends for any reason, and it's a very lonely existence and it's not the existence I think that a veteran deserves on these times not for anyone but people who serve in the country you just get to hold is someone that was you fought for your country that's great clap clap here everything everything else and you go to prison for whatever reason, and all of a sudden you're pigeonholed as a as a convict or stop becoming a veteran and, and it's not, it's not we should know better but we don't have much guidance doing when they come out we tend to just sort of find their own way and usually goes wrong. We should point out rich it's a murky area though isn't it because as we I think we said at the beginning of the podcast or even before the drug laws are incredibly they're inconsistent they're unfair that they don't work. And they benefit, you know, certain groups in society that don't care about guys like me and you right. All, all the, the hundreds of thousands of people that struggle with addiction on a daily basis. So addiction is a mental health condition, generally born out of childhood trauma so you've been a beaten up little kid, you then struggles to make sense of it as an adult when this trauma repeats. Yeah, substances initially get rid of that trauma and you're, I'm a some I'm like everyone else now right, and that's where that cycle kicks in. Yeah, rather than recognize this trauma what do they do to make your mental health problems illegal which is just that's the stupid is making the flu illegal right. Yeah, that's not even go that's not even go there now right, but I mentioned this because you're very humble. Yeah, and I get it. Veterans very often like you're like I did right it's like, I don't think you did wrong like I, I'm not suggesting anyone follows your, you know, your lead or my lead. As I always say rich, you live your life, right, I'll live mine that learn we're happy then and we, you know, yeah. I just mentioned it because the out of the dance era that you said I mean God, so many of us learn an awful lot about ourselves. Yeah, about life, about. Okay, it was a false community when you had sort of in the clouds but but it also showed you actually that what community was that, you know, yeah, 3000 people can come together in a field on Dartmoor. And the worst thing that happens all night is a you have a bloody good time. Yeah. And you had the girl or the guy next to you right. Yeah, and that's what it was. It was it was it was just wasn't ready for that kind of atmosphere and everything associated with that whole lifestyle just seemed so appealing at the time and when you've been, and the way that I kind of sort of says when I used to go and leave and I think a lot of veterans will probably relate to this whenever you go and leave you see your friends and family they're all very happy to see you back again but you never really, you don't really ever fit back into that circle again, because they were your circle of friends and when you leave and join the forces you become different you change you, you adapt to a new lifestyle with with with the people you serve him with. You've always kind of wrongly or rightly so you kind of almost elevate yourself above or beyond that group because of maybe some of the experiences that you've had you've got the deal, you weren't there man kind of attitude. And it's very hard to reintegrate back into that group of friends again so when you come out. You still feel that this outsider was never in and that lifestyle gave me a way to build this circle around me like I suppose I could come for a blanket. I created my own circle I created my own environment with once I started becoming the person that was providing the drugs I then and the drugs then became a relevant is the fact that people came came to me. They came into my circle, and I felt comfortable with that because I had control over that circle and it's not about being in control is about being a part of something which which which I felt like I belonged. And that was still strange thing about it was no longer this person this this person sat around this group of friends. I had my own bubble, and it was a big bubble, and it was great and I felt that weirdly at the time. It was like an achievement, and it wasn't a great achievement, but for me personally at the time. It kind of got me through that transition and albeit completely in the wrong direction. I kind of survived it. I went no I went off on a tangent really badly when I went into cocaine that was when the world completely changed for me, but in the ecstasy days it was just. It was just nice because it wasn't any real major stress at the time the stress comes with cocaine. That's when it completely changes. I should just clarify again for people listening because we're not here to upset anyone. Yes, when you're hugging in the field and you're having a good old dance off. There will be people and I was one of them will take the party home, and then they'll have then they'll kick the party off the next day and we're going to party for one now right it's called addiction right don't want that feeling of happiness to stop, because, you know, you've never actually felt comfortable in your whole life and I'm making this in simplistic terms so as many people can understand as possible. Yeah, the other side of the coin is what is legal is drinking 10 points of poison, going down down a main street in your city and beating the shit out of a complete stranger, leaving them, you know, an intensive care, right, kicking someone's heading because they try and get in a taxi before you, throwing up your kebab over some complete stranger right. Yeah, going home, right, creating domestic violence right I'm painting. And that is another culture, you know, what I'm trying to say is let's all stop judging each other that is still a drug, still a poison, still has massive issues and yet that scenario is completely legal. The hugging each other in a field and having a dance, and then, you know, spending the next day like watching shit on TV and eating pizza because you feel so bad. Yes, it's really because that's a really interesting point because when we when I was in this little circle of friends and we're all taking ecstasy at the time, and we're on this different level just dancing just having a good time. There was never any problems with it the only time we would encounter a problem and again this isn't me trying to justify anything is if there'd be a group of lads would turn up and they were clearly drunk mean completely drunk. And we would then think, oh God, this is going to be a nightmare, because you think it is drunk drunk and lads turn up. Our mix was a mix of guys and girls, you know, and we think this is just going to be a nightmare because we don't want the trouble. We just want to enjoy ourselves. And then people who were you've had few too many would come out they start getting going all over the girls and they'd be pushing us around with him we just don't want the issue. I suppose that was the difference between us at the time was involved in that it was very peaceful and nonviolent. Back in the 60s I guess it was very very loving and nice but people were drunk it was a very different feeling what doesn't mean they were going to cause a problem it just seemed like they were because of our perception of we're all loved up and they clearly weren't. But you're right is it was, they both have bring so many different problems, you know, in their own way. But yeah it was tough. There was a very defining moment on the dance scene and I'm talking the city where I lived. And things changed when they shut the big warehouses down. The scene tried to move into other clubs, but then those clubs were trying to cater to drinkers and the pill takers right they were trying to get. So come the late night clubs that would stay open till say seven in the morning. Yeah, you get this bizarre scenario where at five o'clock. And the people they're all up, you know, giving it large on the dance floor loved up, not going to arm the fly. Then you had these drunken swagger stood there like this with either confusion on their face. Yeah, why are these people so happy what why am I, you know, yeah, or anger. They were not happy that, you know, there's a guy that dancing with five girls. Yeah, why smile in his head off and here I am on my own like absolutely. Yeah, and that's a really good point because I think when you're in that state of mind I on on those particular drugs. You're having a great time you're not really interested in getting laid if I may say that if you're not interested you just want to have a good time. Yeah, when you drunk a drunken lad generally speaking you correct from for one or two reasons to get one or three one drink just drink have a scrap or to find the young lady for the night. And if you're drunk and you're seeing these really attractive girls that's having a great time and you think why are you interested in me then you're right the resentment kicks in the anger kicks in. You're still with all kinds of problems and when you're wired to the moon on ecstasy the last thing you want to be doing is get involved in a fight because you just don't want it. It doesn't mean you not because you, you sense this so alert you're so wired and you're so aware of everything around you that you've no idea what you may or may not be capable of at that time. You think I just rather avoid it. You know, but yeah you're right it's a funny time funny transition for especially could talk again about when it started to become the norm to mix alcohol with with the substance and that just produced a real horrible type of person. Yeah, maybe we should come on to this because Coke is the thing as well isn't it that can really, really affect people psyche. Yeah, it was do you know what when we were. It was round about, let's say about 2000 1999 2000, and I was kind of thinking that the ecstasy was really getting very difficult to to live on, not as a substance but to financially to survive. And people around who've been clubbing for these four or five years, it slowly started to go home from the club on the night, sort of taking more pills that they might get. A little bit of coke on board or have a bit of smoke just to try and find a way to sort of numb the night just just trying to get in a bit older now trying to sort of draw the lights out and just finish it and I think that's when it started to change when everyone went from being a circle of friends that enjoyed dancing to go into a pub before you go in the club and all of a sudden have a little sneaky little line, and all of a sudden, you become very subdued. And then that's what people can be seen as being quite arrogant, if they're on cocaine because you become subdued and you don't really convert in the same way. So you drink in heavily and you can drink a ridiculous amount of alcohol and not actually be drunk, you find the balance between the two. And that's when it really changed for me because that circle of friends that I used to go out and enjoy clubbing with were no longer clubbing they were buying cocaine. And I thought, well, I better start selling this then really because I'm not really selling that many pills anymore and I've clearly not got a job, which is any good. So I need to start thinking about an income and by then this this has already become my life by then this we're talking four years down the road and it was, it's never too late to come out of it but for me at that time. I was already in it, I was already in it and it's a constant decision at the time to keep going as I was until at least I knew what was going on. So I started to sell cocaine on small amounts. And I think it really changed in 2002, when I started to go into a little bit, a little bit bigger. And this is from the dealing and supply side of it I wouldn't really take that much I dabbled now and again, because my wife at the time we'd had our first son in 1999. So I was married in 2002. So, and they didn't know anything about it clearly my son didn't he was a baby with my wife, my family, my dad, nobody knew anything about my illegal activities I was very, very secretive. I hid everything really well, and I blame my military training for that, you know, I'm not blaming them but that's that's one of the ways that I use that is to be able to sort of manage to sort of keep it under wraps. And to stakes, when you're selling cocaine, they change dramatically the financial gains and losses, but not just that the people involved in the industry it becomes a very greedy and manipulative industry. And that's when the problems really began, because it just becomes, but you get used to it you just adjust your life to allow for these different characters you adjust your, your stress levels to deal with these kind of numbers and in, if in it back in the time that we're talking what 20 years ago when I was sending ecstasy. Basically, if you were to buy 10,000, let's say 10,000 pills, it might cost me about 4,000 pounds. This is all done on credits all done on ticks imagine if it goes wrong, you've still got to pay for it. So when you buy cocaine at the time you might buy a quarter of a kilo and it might cost you. So you get 9,000 pounds. So the financially, the substances that you're handling so volume volume wise was so much less but the cost so much more. And the greed and the manipulation was just was frightening and then you're looking at trying to sort of find your way through the market and that's when you start coming into not so much like territorial wars. You certainly got people who say right now, you have to buy it from me or we have to do it this way and then people are trying to have you over by selling me stuff which isn't really what it's meant to be and it becomes really really quite scary at times. There have been some times when I thought this this is going to go really safe. This is going to go wrong. It wasn't it was horrible. It was horrible. I don't think I ever really truly enjoyed myself when I was for the, what for my two for about 10 years selling cocaine. I don't think I've ever really sat back and thought, I'm having a great time. Now I don't think I ever manage that you mask that with the money that you could potentially earn by doing the things that you've maybe never been able to do. Had you not sold these things but it's all tainted because in the back of your mind you're thinking well this is all going to go soon it's all going to be taken away from me I'm going to be in prison. I'm going to lose my life my wife or my kids are going to get kidnapped. That's always in the back of my mind and if people are going into that world and they're not having that in there, then they're wrong. And if you're not ready for it, which I always was, then it's going to hit you that much harder, but it's like you're stressed about something which might not actually happen but I'd rather sit there and be mentally prepared for it than not really bad, really, really horrible. But something else we should point out for our, you know, for our young people that potentially see this as a glamorous area or somewhere where they can get a shortcut to to make a bit of cash is, yes you will, you will. This business is renowned for making a lot of money quite quickly right. What happens is, it's not really there's no key transferable skills in this profession it's very, it's a one single thing that you do. Yeah, let's forget all the looking over your shoulder every day which is just no way to live anyway right. But what happens is, you will get busted. You will, you will get cocky, you'll get blasé. One silly little thing, insignificant, like maybe you nick a Mars bar in a shop without thinking, get caught. And then when they search you, you've got something in your pocket so they go to your house. Right, this kind of stuff, not to mention obviously you're going to get grasped up because there's, you know, so many informants out there. Yeah, so then you're so you've wasted three years in a dead end career doing this thing, you then get banged up for three years. Yeah, that's six years. You're right. What happens in that six years, all your mates have leapfrogged you. They've now got houses, mortgages they pay, they're working hard, they've gone into higher education. You know, maybe that doesn't work so they try something else. And I've seen this in people I know and people I love, where they come out the neck. They're basically no different to when they left school, they've got nothing right. Yeah, what do they do to try to get that cued off back because when we're young we operate out of our ego. They go, I'm going to do another deal. And everyone goes, when you were banged up you said you was never going to do that again. Yeah, you were crying in your letters, we all went to visit you and support you blah blah blah blah blah. Look what you've done for all our support, you come straight and this is not a lecture guys I'm just trying to sell a story here right. You come back out, you realise you've not missed a big shot anymore and your ego wants that cued off back so you're going to go and do this thing. And what happens three years later bang, arrested again so you don't just get three years now now you get the five. Yeah. And then what happens you come out and you're off then you're a repeat offender. And Rich I don't know if you'll agree with me but I say to anyone. Not that stuff on it, it's not worth it. Go and learn something, start your own business, start a YouTube chat, try and write a book. Yeah. Go and study a course at night school. Ultimately, you'll become happier and more wealthier if that's your thing. Yeah, more secure let's say, then if you do the shortcut career. Yeah, there's so many guys when I was in prison. I used to be a mentor for support veterans anyway and that's something else but I used to be a mentor and support guys coming in. And I'd help them with the journey through the prison so these these people might have been on the first sentence or them it could be in multiple times and when they come in actually makes you make a conscious decision to this is it I'm going to change I've been in too many times. You can see the difference in their, in their mindset they are totally liberated and they're so enthusiastic to learn because you've got education in prison you've got, you can learn some basic trades or you can, if you, if you've got some you can apply yourself and develop your own plans. You see the people and said about using the amount of energy you're using to not get caught when they finally realize that they haven't got to waste that energy on on hiding and being evasive anymore, and they apply that to something which is going to benefit their future. You see the difference what they can achieve in such a short space of time. And they actually, but what they require and this this comes for anyone is prisons very good at encouraging you to change and to make you better yourself reform. Obviously the word that we use. That's great until you walk out of the prison doors now probation are equally good but they're there to safeguard the public and to ensure that you're adhered to certain conditions which I understand that it's about safeguarding the public against anyone who's got who's a risk or danger. They haven't always necessarily got the funding or the finance or the time and staff to help you continue on your journey of reform. I'm lucky I've, I've did everything myself inside because that's such a long sentence I had time to get this done but some of the guys on the short sentence. When they come out they've been patterned on the back by the people who've been looking after them for the last one, two, three years or months, whatever. There is yeah this is a great idea but as soon as you come out of prison. You kind of down to this down to themselves and they don't get that continued encouragement. So it's very quick for them to be really enthusiastic but then they got to add this to the fact they're coming out of prison. Are they going to a house or they go, what's what's a personal circumstances they got anywhere to go. They still got support from their family. So many other things have got to take into consideration as well as this master plan they've got about putting life back on track. That's where it normally comes unstuck and it's very much the same as coming out of the forces you come out of such a big secure environment with these great plans and we are a lot of the time. Unfortunately quite delusional with with what we think we hope to achieve with what with our qualifications. I know the CCP are doing some great things now but there's so many holes and so many gaps for young veterans who are coming out of forces and they've got these plans and then takes a couple of knocks a couple of falls and you kind of your confidence goes and you get on the drink or the drugs and then it goes even further so you're on that slippery slope fairly quickly, but this can happen at any time. We carry a lot of demons inside of us from what we've been around what we've seen and mental health can creep up on you can creep up on you and before you know you're really in a really bad place. So yeah it's hard it's really hard coming out of with these qualifications and trying to make that change has to be a conscious decision in your own mind. I am going to definitely do this is what I'm going to do I'm not going to let anything get in my way I'm going to succeed and that can drive you a long way. And that's what I'm trying to do in there. Rich, seeing as though you're our man, the man that knows a lot about this stuff, let's just talk about Coke itself. Yeah. Or what what they, but there's two kinds isn't there there's the real stuff and then what they sell on the streets of. Yeah and everything in between. Yeah. Everyone was doing it everybody around me was no longer doing it to see they were doing cocaine and it just everything changed dramatically. And because I was the one supplying it. I wasn't ever involved in selling on the streets I never got involved in selling grams I just kind of jumped from some of ecstasy to going straight into say caught a kilo of cocaine. So I've never really got involved in never on the front line as such but because I was people that knew me, they looked at me differently now they didn't see me as their friend rich you see me as someone. He's really sort of stepped up a little bit now so they kind of looked and treated me differently and I didn't want that I want to be treated like rich. The person that I got to know them is some of them is really good friends, but they never saw me that way anymore. And then the more I got involved in it. And the more I kind of business myself from people around me that I cared about because that's when I had to, because my life was really starting to change and I kind of wanted a way out of it now and I was always looking for a way out. I got involved in coat there are too many problems too many issues, and the money was never as good as it should have been because you're always paying for someone else's mistake. Someone's been arrested and problem of cookies if you sell. We call it a nine bar which is nine ounces which is, you got the whole imperial and then you got the metric and it's, it's not confusing but it is, it can be. Someone's let's let's say an ounce of cocaine for 1000 pounds for argument sake. Now I've taken this stuff on credit, so I owe someone 9000 pounds or I owe someone 8000 pounds what profit would have been let's say 1000 pounds for it. Again, it may or may not be one person has a mistake or a problem that you sold to, or they haven't got the money, or they decided to stick a lot of their nose for the weekend, all of a sudden you haven't got your profit. I hope that the other eight people pay you without fault. Bear in mind you also still got to pay wages for your runners xyz it could be 500 pound and wages already you're running a deficit you're already lost 500 pounds. One other person gets a problem, you're short, you're late you haven't got the money for the guy that you're the money to. And these are the people that don't really like to be given. They've got their money, regardless. So it doesn't take much to turn a potentially lucrative deal into an absolute nightmare and let's say all across the board all nine people, they all have a little problem they all come up 250 quid short, you're already down again. So then what you got to do then you got to start right I need to start cutting this stuff to allow for their mistakes to allow to ensure that I at least can pay my bill. And that's before you've made any money so imagine the stress on top of your neck was already you're changing the dynamic of the business you're now getting involved in messing with the substance which is already been messed with. So, you run risks of adding something to this and it's all usually quite benign substances, and I won't say what they are, but you add something to it which you know should be okay. But you don't know what's been put in it before so if you put something in there and it reacts with what's already in there, you've just destroyed nine grand worth of substances, which you still have to pay for. It's unsellable, because it might turn into it might, it's chemicals are chemicals in there and they will react in some way and I've had things which I've tried to push a little bit further should I say, and it's gone it's turned into a slimy mess. What am I going to do with this, what, and all of a sudden you're in nine grand in debt. You've got to figure out how am I going to get out of that debt. Then you've got to start buying stuff in and cutting it again with something which isn't going to react and it becomes an absolute nightmare so that's just even before you've made any money. So that if that's not enough to put someone off. I don't know what it is it's really really precarious path about you can make money if you're in the right place at the right time and you are ruthless and you don't want any friends. You don't want to get caught. And it's still going to be lonely and it's still going to be stressed out and it's still probably going to die at some point. But the rest of it is just, it's really hard work, and it is stressful. Yes, especially when you see it all completely fall apart on you. Yeah, I want to chip in here rich with something else. You know, that thing wasn't there on the dance scene. Yeah, when I first started going out. You bought one love dove or a Calais they were, you know, you know, it was a very for people listen a very strong exercise you feel it just send you a bit do lally you know. But you pay 15 quid. 15 quid. And I had mates that would pop five on an eye out. I don't even know where they got the money for a well some of them had their own businesses right. And then we saw this situation. And I'm guessing it was related to the fact that ecstasy is synthesized or it's produced from the saff, saffron tree is it in Cambodia. Okay, they dig up this tree. They chainsaw the root of it. And that contains the main chemical that synthesized into ecstasy or whatever the whatever that word is right. The DNA isn't it. Yeah, so it's not it's it's not hard to see that this tree is going to be harvested out of existence right. The reason I mention it is because overnight, almost overnight, pills went from being 15 quid to a quid. Right. 97. Yeah, a quid. Yeah. Right. Now, they still had an effect on you right wasn't quite the same as the old, the old school stuff which sent you to this just God just put you on a. I was going to say it was a crowd. It's not it. There isn't words to describe it right and this isn't a recommendation people go and do it but now the same thing right happen with base do you remember base right yeah speed and base was it. When I got back from Hong Kong because I couldn't buy crystal meth in the UK a pat you could get it if you were I think if you're on the gay scene there were places, you know there were ways to get it. But the next best thing to crystal meth was base amphetamine so meth amphetamine but just not purified to its crystal form right yeah. And then the day came along and it took quite a while but it was about say let's say 2005 ish yeah where suddenly this stuff that you bought from your guy is this ain't the same. Yeah, it doesn't even smell it doesn't have that anyone knows the smell will know what it yeah and again it was some chemical synthesis. Yeah, clearly they didn't have the right ingredients my guess would have been the powers that be brought stricter laws out on what the chemical companies could sell and what they couldn't sell and who to right. And companies like I don't know I see I or whatever the big bulk distributors of barrels of chemicals in this company, probably then out to be a bit more. You know, accountable, but who you know you selling this to some farmer who live, you know, a barn in North Devon with a with a copper bath tub in it which is part of the process for making speed for anyone listen. So, there was that right. Then there was the fact that anytime you bought this cocaine so it was just fucking shit excuse my French but it was just you get some scrawny little spotty geezer. Yeah, it would sell you this 50 and it was, and I say I can say that because obviously I've traveled every single country in the Americas. It's, it's a fascinating subject just to be aware of down there. For example, when you're in place like Honduras, Honduras, Nicaragua, such places. Bails of cocaine wash ashore there. And they come from the smuggling boats from South America's these high powered speed boats. When they see a spot of plane, they just chuck it all overboard right. And it washes up on the beaches in Central America and the locals go, Oh, okay. Yeah, little bit for themselves. The rest of it sold and so in any region in that part of the world. Columbia, Venezuela, even as far as when you start getting across to Guyana it very much more becomes crack, because it's when you're in Guyana it's very Georgetown is very getter wise. Yeah, it's where they were all sent down as slaves. And then at some point in our colonial histories they got their freedom. Yeah, but they still live in fricking poverty down there you know a rock of crack what will cost you 10 or 15 quid in the West. You buy for for a dollar down there you know it's maybe shouldn't be advertising that was off. But what I can tell you you know from my adventures is like bloody out. You buy that stuff in Columbia it's even Hong Kong funny enough it's just a different animal right. I think you're right because if you look at the transit route which it will take from say South America across to the canaries and into maybe North Africa through Spain, and so on and so forth. It starts off over in South America, a couple of grand, maybe four up to four grand for maybe a kilo, and then the further closer it gets to the UK, the less pure it becomes and the more expensive it gets. The bottom is my prices are way going to be way off I haven't been near it since 2010. You know that's when I was arrested or that's when my investigation started. So the prices we were paying back in the UK then were something around about 60 grand for a kilo of coke, and that probably wasn't completely pure it's probably about 70% 10 years or something like that I think in the back 2001 or no 2002 to less than 10 years, it was half the price and better. So it fluctuates so much dependent on the rest, how much gets across the water. It's like any other commodity, it does vary in price quality and everything else so you're right over in the South America is a totally different animal compared to when it gets here but as soon as the market doesn't get hold of it I say business but as in the top end people, they'll start mixing it spreading it repackaging it. You know, most people rarely seen the real stuff rarely that they could be placebo to make it look like it's real but rarely see it. Yeah, the companies that make these hydraulic presses have must have made a fortune in the last 20 years. They re-block it with Novocaine and all this stuff don't they? Yeah, we used to buy various things from like say about the chemicals that you can buy large drums of various substances which you can use to mix it with and they are perfectly safe things because they're used in most other medicines of some sort and then you bear in mind the quantities that you're probably going to be taken on board if you're putting it up your nose and less than you would if you were to take it through correct medicinal reasons. So it's kind of morally I suppose there is such a thing morally well at least I'm not kind of something dangerous but you're still selling drugs aren't you? You're still selling crap onto the streets of the UK but kind of morally thinking all these rumors have always been cut with rat poison or this. No, why would you do that? Why would you want to kill potentially good customers? Yeah, of course. It doesn't happen unless someone's trying to maliciously spike you or cause you a problem. What I want to come on to Rich is, again, we went through all that hassle of scoring and waiting for your dealer. Oh my God, who's ever waited for a dealer? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Now you've got all this county line stuff you know where the big crimbo send a young lad out. He esconces in a rural community, possibly blackmailing or threatening a local person, maybe with learning disability or something like I'm living in your house right or they feed someone who's got addiction problems. There's a route that they get to stay in someone's house. I'm guessing they secrete the gear in the local area so nothing is traceable back to then. Yeah, they then have a burner phone and they hand out numbers to everyone with the prices of the gear on the back. They're, you know, they, they either travel back to the inner city themselves and shove something more down their underpants and get on the train. They're so young, they get under the radar or the police blah blah blah blah blah blah right. So, from that perspective, it's become a bit easier to sort this stuff out, right. And I'm not, again, I'm not like saying that's good or whatever I'm just just for the sake of education here. But the thing I wanted to say is you go for all that hassle. What you get is now crap anyway. Yeah, right. Plus you risk, you guys are risking getting arrested you're getting risking getting getting arrested dah dah dah dah all the hassle the time even if you can get the stuff. Now, you got the dark web. Yeah, well online apparently. Well, let you know, I'm not going to say too much though, although we are not saying anything friends that you can't see in a vice documentary or even a BBC documentary they discuss all of this right all of it. But basically, as long as you are even slightly internet savvy, right. And the only reason you need savviness is that you dealing, you're talking code right and you need time to encrypt your code right it's it's even your grand could learn it like in an hour right. Sorry, grand. Even your granddad could learn it in an hour. Yeah. So, if you want to be low and be old for price cheaper than on the street. You got the pure stuff from Bolivia, right. Half the price. Sent you through the post. I posted on the one or still inside a couple of years ago I actually saw documentary about this. And it was about a group of lads planning their nights out and they said they've gone on to the web they didn't show the search engine of what they were doing is ordering this substance on there. And it was so clear, but encoded. So how does that work for someone not getting caught and it was hoping that his delivery arrives in time before he goes on a Saturday night and I thought, that's insane. From a business perspective is great it's just it's just like, you know, that that's just phenomenal but think how does that work someone's going to get caught that surely there must be. There are very clever people in GCH queue are going to crack these codes but they don't did on these encrypted phones a few months ago whereas a massive set of the rest right across Europe. Eventually will crack these codes eventually. The thing is rich right is yes you're right there's always a way to infiltrate treat these kind of networks right. You got to remember. We've got to remember. It's on mass now. Yeah, and are the police really going to be bothered about sit up the road is getting a quarter of wacky backie for his Friday night. Right. Yeah. So, all, I'm not going to say the websites or anything, anything like that but but but the basis way that it works is the money side of it's all encrypted it so it's not even Bitcoin it's it's more encrypted money systems and that. Yeah, so even if the, the, the bill are looking at the money system they can't work out where this money's coming it's all encrypted you know it's all encrypted right. Yeah, on top of that you, you know, it's not just like you can sign up for it like eBay there's other measures in slightly in place let's say yeah. On top of that, as I said you you encrypt all your information in code, which only you or the person you give your cipher to can decode right. Yeah, yeah. On top of that, right, unless I'm guessing you're probably a bit stupid, you ain't going to put your name on that package, right. You're going to put john sniff aren't you what why wouldn't you, because then when it does, you know, when it does come to your door. If let's just say sniff the dog at the post office has gone right, which says john's it's not for you, you know, they say sorry off so obviously got the wrong house suddenly right right this. And so in amongst all that, we've got the, you know the little man in the street who just wants to go for a party on a Friday or a Saturday night but buying such an insignificant amount that the police work that would have to go in to and proving that was actually his right. Yeah, and that he paid for it through digital currency, you're talking like 30 police officers what to bust a guy who's ordered a quarter of dope, you know, or, right. So you've got all that. I don't know if obfuscation is the right word. But in amongst that, you've got people buying big stuff. You're, you know, you're talking how do I know this I stayed with somebody in Central Europe. They showed they explained it all to me and they showed me the product right. Yeah, all the stuff that we've said you can't get anymore. Wrong. Right. Yeah. And yeah, so what in amongst that if you want to buy a kilo of the stuff, your price is there. Yeah, you know, your price is there and the only risk is is that it gets intercepted. Yeah, chances are probably that's maybe I don't know one in 100,000 chance. So your profits already quite safe, aren't they, you know, if one one consignment and 100,000 goes missing. So yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of like the old way of doing it is a bit like the mugs game now isn't it. I think so I think that the old fashioned boots on the ground if you like it's it's becoming digital speed they use an already an already approved infrastructure like the Royal Mail or anything else to do there, or they're running for them. All they're doing is literally taking an order and they're like an outlet, aren't they online outlet. And, and that's something that's already been developed while I've been away and I come out and although I had no intention to go back into that world. I'm thinking, even if I had the wildest idea of going back into I wouldn't stand a chance with the way things have moved on and technology I thought it would just be crazy. And there's some very clever people looking at things or very tech savvy and utilizing what they've got around them and let's say to use an already approved system like the Royal Mail delivery system is, you know, it's clever. But there will come a time when people eventually they, they get caught for other reasons or they have to launder the money they have to find a way to put the money to the bank, although it's already going through a digital network and it will probably have some system being bounced around a few different companies before it arrives with them. A mistake will be made and somebody will get caught and then once the authorities have found out how they're doing it, they've already got the information they need. I mean the way I've done some work with police officers in support of veterans and we were trying and we both agreed that as someone selling drugs, I only had to get it wrong once. The police have only got to get it right once. That's how it works, you know, they just got to stumble across a lead, they get it right bang, they've got it. So we've got to be from my end out to be on my toes all the time. I make one mistake and I'm done. That's all it is, regardless of how you're doing it. Rich, let's talk about then how, how did it start getting serious? Can you tell us any kind of, you know, what's it like driving a car when you know what's going on? When you know what's in the boot or shoved in the door panel or whatever it is? Yeah, so I think with when you get involved in that in that world, you can choose how you want to operate and you can operate independently as one person. Or you will go to your supplier, you purchase whatever you're buying and you'll distribute that yourself. Or you can start to sort of think right okay this is getting a bit much one person you start to employ runners. So, progressively over, I would say from about 1999, I always try to employ runners if it was viable and I could afford to do so. And I always have to, and this is going to sound really bad because no one in my eyes is expendable or disposable. So employ someone who's going to effectively do the dirty work for you. You have to have someone that you trust. And trouble is, if someone you trust you generally like them. So why would you want someone that you like doing your crap for you. And it's a really difficult decision to make because you're thinking, I really like this guy, he's my mate but he's in the crappiness of money he's just lost his job for example. He's got any work I have but it's probably not what you're going to want to really do. And it's well no I know what you're doing and so okay so you offer them opportunity to work. I said not for me work with me because my I've always worked with with guys I wouldn't have them do anything I haven't done myself and I wouldn't be prepared to do if I needed to do and I have done on many occasions. So you kind of expand your business from a one man band so maybe a couple of you. And then it's a bit bigger than anything I don't want him doing too much so I might need someone to collect the bulk things before I start messing with it. Father I don't want to be sat there with my press doing all the hard work I want someone to do that for me now because I don't. I'm okay I don't need to take the risk anymore so you get someone to do that for you. And that's so you know, you got network of about four or five runners, one of them bought one of them one person just counted the money. And I wasn't in the press and I thought, oh, I don't know I get someone to manage it for me so I don't have to actually manage it anymore so you get someone to manage all this for you. So really you do expand and there was a time and it doesn't come without its problems there are been some issues which I've written about in in the first book which I won't give too much away because it is quite a good read where when you finally recover from something and you're actually making the money you need to make in order to get out of that life. I always had an exit plan and the exit plan was getting close. You can distance yourself so far away from it that you then become it becomes a conspiracy and you're going from being arrested for possession possession with intent. You then look at being arrested for conspiracy and that's where I was I was conspiring to sell so I was communicating with a group of people to distribute this stuff across Bristol parts of the Southwest of England and some of it over into Wales over over the bridge. And it was quite a large network, it was a big network and I think there are seven or eight people working with me at the time. You combine that with the several people working for this network I was being supplied from and you add that to the networks of the people that are supplying to you've got quite a lot of people involved. I'm talking like 34 people just within barely close proximity. And can we just clarify on that subject. I'm just, I'm talking now for the people that don't know about this arena of life right which I'm guessing is still probably quite I mean we talk about it quite sort of openly because it's, you know, we understand it but for people who who are going with these druggies God hang them all hang them all right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, let's remember folks alcohol worst drug just days. But how many of this network did you meet with raging psychopaths that like would sell poison to children and you know, not one person in my whole experience. I've met some really bad people don't get me wrong. And you're going to meet bad people in life anyway, they just seem that much more. When they're not when they're living on the other side of law they just seem to be really bad and they are about your but my, my associates and people that I worked with. They're all actually decent people. Some of them even had jobs they just tended to have a little top up. You know, sensible people not nonviolent people, you get violent people in that industry, because you know they're violent. You get violent people working with you down in test case you just don't know they're violent. You know so there are people and there are elements everywhere of people which you need to avoid but people I surrounded myself with. I tried to have like minded people as much as I could, people which were some sort of morals, I know what we were doing was wrong and morally it was wrong but wouldn't do something I knew I was going to intentionally hurt someone, but that was being blind about the world I was in at the time I look back in reflection now selling drugs you're going to get people that are physically you don't have to physically mentally financially there's so much damage can be done, but the people I was with. When we were arrested and this is this actually came from the police they said they've never and it's going to sound really weird. They never met such a bunch of nice drug dealers, which is really daft because everything is, is there such a thing. Clearly got people who are decent decent people just make some really big mistakes in order to survive, and it takes over your life so no not it wasn't a violent network. Not once I ever needed to get involved in anything aggressive with Ireland the fact I choose to my best to actually avoid that if I can, which makes it difficult living on that road if you're can again just rich for the sake of people at home again you're unfamiliar with this, you know let's remember the biggest next to alcohol the second biggest problem in our country is prescription medication. Opia epidemic. These GPs scribbling can't write these prescriptions fast enough. Yeah, based on the sociopaths that own these big pharmaceutical companies that that they have no soul. They, for people that aren't aware when you trade you can trace the history of some of these companies. They have very clever people they pay an awful lot of money to to work out their marketing strategy campaigns. How can they lie to the medical community to get this pill into the market. Right. So you've got one of these strategies was to say that oxycodone which is incredibly strong opiate right. If you're going to be prone to addiction, which anyone who's had childhood trauma is. Yeah, that one's going to get you and done that if you're taking it for a broken leg or a, you know, you've had your bloody ears chopped off whatever you you. Before long, you're going to be start to balance in the high more than you are the pain right or or both. Yeah, these companies pay people to get the GPs to say that this pill is no different to taking an aspirin. Yeah, or it's about the same strength as a code, you know, code. And it's, they know what they're doing. They want the population addicted to these painkillers because they're making a fortune right so going back to Richard's point about the nicest group of drug dealers well. Hang on what's it like when you go in a pharmacy are they are they horrible people. Yeah, they're not kicking it off are they. They look quite respectable don't they and you know I'm not I'm not obviously saying here that there isn't a place in life for prescription medication. I certainly need it when my spine was out that was the worst agony. I didn't move rich for six months I lay in bed peeing in a bucket it was awful you know, called 999 what 999 or 911 three times I was in that much that much pain sometimes right. Sorry to die digress but yeah I just wanted to make that point and we're not I'm not trying to like justify anything here folks it's just the these are the truths in life that we, when we, when we just believe our precious BBC we don't get to understand these areas. Yeah, as well because I've seen two types of two types of people how they run their business involved in drug distribution and you can even run it as a gangster, which is the violent and ruthless way. People get hurt people are getting kidnapped and everything else we run it as a business, and you just try to survive off of it. That doesn't mean it's right it just means that's how you would run the business you don't need to be a violent I was asked a question on social media the other day about your deal I see many firearms. Not once I felt the need to carry or use any form of weapon on and I've been on so many meetings with people which clearly are carrying some kind of weapon in that room at the time in case it goes tips up. I felt the need to I thought well I'm not conducting myself in a way where I'm going to pose a threat. I'm not doing anything which is going to require them to draw a weapon on me. So therefore why would I need to bring a weapon myself but some people will carry weapons or be violent out of fear or greed. And it's a very greedy industry is cocaine especially. And I think people will get overcome by the greed. With that they get paranoia as well because they may be sniffing the profits, they probably aren't to be fair because of the, the level they've gotten to they're not going to get that to that level by indulging all the time. So then it's generally greed greed in a sense of paranoia and they don't want to lose what they've got. And some people do anything to protect that. So there you and that's where the problems can come as you if you approach a new contact with a business mind and that new contact has been dealing with gangsters they've got a gangster mentality. And you can tell that straight away when when you meet them when you see them if you're not really my cup of tea mate you know you're something not quite right about you. You pick up on that and you decide to sort of walk away from what could be a potentially good contacts, but you know that that contact will bring unnecessary headaches with that and that's their mentality and how they approach things. You know, you get the people that shout down the phone and they're aggressive they're screaming. It doesn't change anything, but the people I was with we all spoke we communicated we talked, we all ran our own businesses. We just unfortunately where we're kind of doing that as well in order to survive. And a lot of the time and this is actually not justifying things at all was 2008 we had a major recession 0708 we hit the major recession so financially a lot of things are going really bad. Some people turned to selling drugs during that time in order to keep their business alive, keep things afloat. And again that's not justifying it, but you have businessmen people which were at work hard all their life, chose to take this route in order just to just to keep the thing, keep things alive during a recession. And that's some of the people I was involved with. It was a very, very difficult time I'm not saying that's myself I was guilty of what I did from day one. I met people who were doing this because they had no choice. Well there's always a choice but at the time they didn't see a choice. And, you know, to add a bit of balance the other side of the fence you get some raging psychopaths in this world don't you. I've had to. Yeah I've been in some really bad positions with people which are absolutely insane, totally insane and I've, there's so many times I should have been dead. And I'm not, because I can talk. And if I can't I can run. It doesn't mean I'm not I can't look after myself but I will rather not have to worry about I rather one not be there to if I can talk the way out of it I will talk the way out of it. Generally speaking if it goes wrong on a drug deal you're going to end up with dead bodies. A user of dead bodies and that's not something I'll be around I don't want to be involved in that I don't want to see that. And, but that's the reality, especially now with they say we're counting the lines and young young the younger gangs. These guys are ruthless I've seen guys come into prison or younger the younger end of the scale that in the early 20s arrived in an adult prison. And that's ruthless mentality and they carry that back on the wings. So yeah it's not, it's not fun when you're mixing a decent moral bunch of drug dealers with ones which aren't quite, they'll rob you for anything they can. Yeah we should also acknowledge like back there in Columbia you got nutcases like Pablo Escobar and you just, just at a psychopath. It's really ego maniac. Whatever cloudy he was on just anyone he wanted to blow up and intimidate. You know massive loss of life. Again, I think the educated observer would say drug laws. Let's look at the drug, you know because market demand capitalist society. People are going to sell stuff if they can make money. And if the chances are getting caught are, you know. If the chances are getting caught are sometimes pretty shit you know like you are going to. Yeah, you always look to the positive as humans don't we think that won't happen to us. You make calculated risks that you calculate your risk you look at what you're going to do. There's always going to be a variable in there which you can quite be sure of and that's usually the other person, but you calculate all of your risks throughout the particular process you're going to take where that is coming from taking what you're going to deliver from point A to point B. You look at the person taking it for you look at the vehicle their driver look at their, their comms are they do they smoke pot are they going to have a sneaky joint on the way down there and elevate their risks. Are they a drinker. Are you going to stop and dive into the bag on the route. You have to calculate all of these things before they even left and decide whether to actually employ that person. What happens on the other end of that deal is you have to think right where's the meeting place going to be who are they going to see what's a person like they're going to see is a person. They're like going to actually be there on time we're going to be waiting for half an hour and lay by. There's so many things you have to weigh in and consider on every little drop and if you're doing three or four of these at once. As a person conspiring, you're planning all of this and calculate all of these risks because any one of these people get it wrong. That comes back up the chain lands on your head and you get a knock down for conspiracy supply cocaine, which is what happened. Rich, let's just talk about a few things I'm just make made a couple of notes here so in the car then. Yeah, it was there is there a like a favored place that dealers put their stashes is somewhere that. Yeah, what do you know what I was actually quite. I should love Christmas, because we I would always wrap everything in Christmas presents and gift wrap it and put it in a plausible bag and on the backseat. If it's in there and it's out of sight of mind. That's good enough for me. It's you're not talking a couple of grams you're talking a couple of kilos. You're not going to hide it under anywhere. If your guys are getting pulled they're going to and they're pulling you for a reason they're going to find it they already know it's in the car. Why make it my drawer is going to get found anyway, if you're going to go to the effort of secreting it about the car within the boot linings everything else at some point on the other end of that journey you have to then get it back out again and sell it so. I would always do multiple drops if they're the guys I had doing the running they might I would never give them more than two or three drops each because one, you don't want them having on the phone too much secondly if you're having too much on them. And thirdly you're elevating the risk of them getting caught we're doing more than those drops anyway so why not spread out a little bit. And now generally speaking, I just say long as you're happy with it and it's wrapped up and if it wasn't Christmas I put it in birthday wrapping paper and it would always be gift wrapped. And vacuum sealed as well case that they'd be ditched into a river or under a bush or they weren't happy. It'd be what it'd be weatherproofed might be in bright wrapping paper but it'd be ready, it'd be weatherproofed. So I always kind of had that mentality of always preparing for the unexpected prepare to get caught. And so the guys would just be quite happy to say they'd have a carry bag on the backseat or on the front seat, full of these little gift wrappings. And it'd have like a, it wouldn't have a name on the front it might have a little star or one or two okay it might they would know what's for what person. So if they get pulled they get pulled and let's hope they can talk the way out of it, but they shouldn't give himself any reason to be pulled. Shouldn't be speeding shouldn't be drinking shouldn't be doing it in a legal, but you get some had one guy, very close friend suffer with a temper. He was known for jumping out of car and having to go up people every now and again and did that with me in the car and I 30 grand and the foot well by my feet. Just let that the car start screaming at some guy and I'm thinking would you please get back in the car and I've got a lot of money on me. Get back in the car let's move on. It sort of came back and just grunted a little bit. We drove on. That's when I was there. I don't know why it was like when I wasn't good friend this and I do apologize mate if you listen to those who is rich how does it work then because obviously you're passing on down the line. Yeah, a product at a certain quality. Yeah, but when you go and buy it and sometimes needs must if you need that kilo you need you know but as I should ask you first off how did you test it is it like in the Miami Vice you know where they do that that that stuff. It can be. Yes, it's, you have to try and weigh up your capacity in that particular I was very good at going into I call it lines then going into a first contact meeting with people and and trying something not try it but the ways I would test I'm allowed to say this I mean I don't want to give people any clues but one of the ways I would do would be to take a peek with two fingers and rub it and it would give a certain indication to me. If certain things happened or didn't happen I would know that it was good or bad that would be a good enough indication for me to say, Yes, this is what you're saying it is. I'm happy to take this based on on what I've seen so far however if it's not when we get when we test it properly. It's coming straight back to you. It will be done on credit so they just wouldn't get paid to get the stuff back. It also comes back in the same way that they've they've left it. Then that's not a problem. Other times if I'm bringing if I'm bringing something to someone and they would want to test it and I would respect the fact that if they're spending cash on it and they're paying up front. They want to ask you physically test but they may well stick a bit of the nose which isn't ideal because then you could have sit and wait for them to get off their tits and you just sat there I just want to get paid mate so I can get out of this house I don't really like it in here, or they may do a process where they convert it into crack to test the purity not because they want crack but because that's their indication of how much they. They can produce them a given measure and I'm being very careful now I say this, how much they can reduce my given measure will tell them the more or less the priority in percentage. That's a process which is not ideal but it does give them a pretty good answer of how good it is so that's really something that some people will do if they're paying cash and it's not. It's not nice you see a very dirty process and you see something which is the other end of the spectrum of where I choose to be and but you know what the good and then this is the thing what they would do what they produce that crack. It's right away. And that made me think well at least they're not doing it for that that's where testing and I have met I have actually testing myself I've done this and the same thing I just take that that right and I just chuck it away I'm not interested I don't I don't know what it stands for. I don't know what it does and I don't like actually having it because it's that is pushing something a little bit too far and that might sound weird from someone that sells sold cocaine. But crack is is a whole different kind of fish as something I would choose not to have any involvement with and I didn't like having it around me even if it was less than the gram it was still get thrown in a single wash down the toilet because it represented something I didn't like. So, before your obviously before your arrest. Yeah, arrests plural, because we haven't got that far yet. What, what were like the big scares you know did you ever get pulled on the motorway or something and think oh Jesus crisis is it. There was numerous occasions and I think the closest I ever had. And this was really good I was doing some work with the Colombians over in Spain. And I was paying a debt off I won't go into it too much depth because this is going to be something in one of the books but basically I was transit in a couple of kilos of coke from Spain up through France and a meeting point near the border sorry near near the coast near Calais to offload this code to somebody was going to take it over the water for me. And this is a particular time out to be there for now I've run into a slight problem in in Spain. I was actually talking about trying to stash the stuff or sticking in line under the boot and it was dark it was farther than when it was dark it was cold. So I just sort of did the best to round these couple of kilos into the boot line and then this kind of fall. That will do it's in there is outside of mine. This is set me back about half hour 40 minutes from my meeting point so I actually think what I've got to get a move on here so. So this checkpoints through the, for the border control between Spain over by Bilbao over on the west side up through France towards Paris, and I had no choice but I had to put my foot down. Now prior to this, the guy that was the firm that I was working with I had no money or skin I was paying a debt off. I had to spend some money for expenses to give me a 500 euro note. You don't see him around very often and they're just the questionable type of possession anyway. So that's all I had on me. So I was tanking it up through France, and I come over the rise of this hill and I saw police car doing a radar for crap. I've just been pulled so I sort of slowed down eased off. He pulled out behind me. I'm in trouble there. He pulls me over and he looks in there and he says, I'm trying to speak my best French is are you are going to fast blah blah blah. He said you are 90 euros to pay for the speed if I thought that's fine. I thought, oh my God, this is 500 you will know. So poor that I looked at me anyway. No, you come with us. So they escorted me off of the motorway to these got these gates on the side of the French motor where you would access the sort of come off the motorway and onto the normal roads. They escorted me off for this and it took me and they were taking me into the police station. I'm in trouble there. I thought I've got two keys in the back. They've seen this 500 euro net clearly this is a flag a red flag for them. So they indicated a space me to pull into thought is just some kind of search and stop space and he walked over to me and he said do you have a cash card. I said, yeah, but it's not working. There's no money. Looked at me again. So you follow us they escorted me back out of the police station back onto the motorway to the nearest garage made me buy some fuel. I went back to the garage. Poor that the 500 she was not taking it. I said please just take the money. I think I've gotten away with this and I said explains her that I've been pulled by the police. I didn't have drugs in the boot. I told her I've been pulled by the police. I need to pay a fine. So she eventually got a manager took the money, had the change, paid the police. I went home this year, and they went on their way. So I sat in the French police station with two, two kilos of coke in the boot. I remained calm all the time. I thought there was no point crying about this. I can't do anything about it. I'm not going to run to kind of run them where I'm going to go. I just ride out and see what happens. But that was probably one of the one of the closest I've had. I have had the police in my search in part of my rest in 2009, where there was nothing in there. It was associated with somebody I used to supply to. And I think there was something going on, but they came. They didn't arrest me. They didn't charge me. They just wanted to search the house associate with another person, which I think that was back in the nine. And this kind of didn't go anywhere because by at this point, I think the investigation into me had already started from soccer from even a Somerset. So I think when they, they could have probably investigated further, but I think I probably said, look, back off for this one, guys, we got something a bit bigger going on with us. So that didn't really come to anything. And then it led up to my, my whole organization and taking down the back in the 2010, which was something else. Yeah. So was that a surveillance opera, you know, big intelligence operation that was being done, you guys? There were, we believe it. Well, I know there are informants involved. More than one, I think there's, it's difficult to say. And there's a lot of paranoia involved, but I think you've got to read between the lines. Sometimes there was a surveillance operation going on. They were watching, I think not so much watching me, but it was certainly keeping tabs on me for a while prior to the first arrest, which is the end of the end of October 2010. You get signs and indication of being quite surveillance savvy. Sometimes when you're speaking on your phone, on your burners, as you mentioned, when you ring someone who's involved in that conspiracy, because bear in mind, this phone will only have the numbers in it for people that you are dealing with, if you like. You're something to get a bit of feedback or an echo or think, it doesn't sound right. So I'll say, I'll call you back in a sec. It doesn't matter. Calling back is you telling the person that's listening to you, that you know they're listening to you or you've got an idea. So weird thing is you call back and that echo is gone. And that feedback is gone. I think that sounds better, but I don't like this. You change your phones. So you do get kind of signs that you, that you may be being watched periodically over a period of time. But when the first arrest was taken down, I think October the 28th or 27th, 2010, close friend of mine, the guy that suffered road rage funny enough. He was nick with about one and a quarter kilos in the car. I think he resisted arrest a little bit, but he would have done because he's, that's how he is. And for me being slightly, I suppose I was trying to be slightly ignorant. I was kind of hoping, gutted he'd been arrested because now I've got 40 odd grand bill to pay. And I've just lost a really good friend. But second, I was kind of hoping it's cause it was something linked with his road rage. He'd been something to caught up with him. So I'm thinking, is it has even nicked or not? And I, is it to do with me? Is it to do with the conspiracy? The fact is irrelevant. The fact that he'd been caught with drugs was enough. Well, I've got to shut down. So what the police will do is I'll keep them. Would there be in a, in this story near this, and informant evolve that person will manipulate the situation. They try and get you to keep, keep selling. Cause I'd shut down. No, that's it. I'm done. I'm finished. This is, it's on top. We're going to get arrested. I need to do damage limitation now. But this guy kept, so I'll just do, I got a friend who will do something for you. Just, you know, just do, just do a little bit. I said, no, I don't want to, I don't have to finish. I'm done. This was the guy that was managing it for me. But another month went by and the guy said, look, need somebody I know needs something. Can you, can you sort out and I thought, oh, or so I made a couple of phone calls, sent this guy down safe to, to collect something. And he got arrested. So that was the first thing I'd done since the previous arrest. And that's where I got Nick straight away. I thought, well, that's weird. It seems to me like it's definitely on top now, just to do two, to get two arrests in, in over a space of a month, literally a month apart and then get Nick straight away. So clearly he's being watched. Right. That's it. I'm definitely done. So another month goes by and it's New Year's Eve. A chap that was I was, that I used to supply to said, Oh, so like it's New Year's Eve now needs to get some sort of, that's a man, I am out of it. I'm done. I'm finished. I'm already in trouble. I don't want to be any more trouble. You said, look, can you put me into someone? I said, look, I give you a number, but I'm nothing to do with it. So I gave this chap, this gave me each other's numbers basically. So he wanted an ounce of cocaine. I thought, let them get on with it. I'm, I've already involved myself now by giving them the numbers. That is conspiracy alone. So someone thinks that just giving a number is okay. It's not. You've already conspired. If you weren't there, that deal would never happen. So I have to, I have to look at how a conspiracy works. So I've given the number. Now New Year's Eve is midday, get a phone call from the chap that wants the goods and I can't get all of you made ringing. I'm trying. So I'll ring him for it. So I rang him. I said, can you ring him? He's trying to get all of this. This is all of a sudden that link that circle has just been sealed by these phone calls. They met up. He drove away. He got arrested. I thought, well, it's pretty clear to me what's going on. So three people got arrested in three deals over three months. And that is clearly definitive proof that I was clearly being watched and things were going on. So time goes by April 2011. I was at work. I was running a business at the time. This is my exit strategy. I'd already kind of almost made it. But that's probably another story. And three or four unmarked focuses pull up outside. And I thought, what was the business mate? I used to work in motorsport. It was called launch motorsports. So I used to develop cars for competition use. I used to race. And this is part of the ill gotten gains. I think of me living that lavish lifestyle of trying to move out of selling drugs into opening the garage. I actually got the garage opened. It was there and I'd finally made it. I fell at the last hurdle, but that's, yeah, that's something else. It was, it was difficult because of the recession. It was, I mean, I opened the garage the first of October 2010. The investigators started the 23rd of September that same year. So literally I'll open the garage a week after they started watching me. It's inevitable. It was going to happen. So you should have built yourself a general Lee. They always escaped. They always escaped from the cops and got out of jail. I know. I know I should have built, should have built, should have got back in the tank again. I'd have been all right. Yeah. So I think it was around about the 14th of April, 14th of April, 2011. They, these cars turned up. And I thought, well, that's it then. You know, so I walked out and say good morning. Rich Jones. Yeah. Right. We're arresting you for conspiracies, blood cocaine, et cetera, et cetera. So right. Okay. What can I say? I didn't say anything. Went back was interviewed. I was released on bail, which was surprising. Did you get a brief? Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah, I did. And do you know what? This is the really crazy thing about it. I, I didn't know what to do because I actually really like the police. I've got so much time for the police. I've got, I've never at any point seen the police as the enemy. I just seen them as the other side of the coin doing, doing a job, which they have to do with my dad's background. I've got huge respect for the police. And I felt, if I'm going to be going, no comment, I feel like I'm being a right idiot. Yeah. I don't want to make, I don't want to make the job hard. And that sounds really daft because I've got that much time for them. But my brief said, look, what do you want to do? I said, Oh, I got nothing to hide. I'm trying to play the innocent man. I said, I'll talk, but I'm, I'm clever not to drop anyone in the crap, but you are going to get yourself into trouble by just purely commenting and speaking because they are going to find a way. To reel you in, which is what they have to do during the interview process to reel you in and get you to either look stupid or say something which you didn't want to say or say something which conflicts something you said earlier. And that's just the process that you go through. And although I thought I did a pretty good job on the interview. And I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. I quite liked being interrogated. Cause that's how it felt. And I quite liked the thought, oh, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just like, I thought, oh, this is, this is great. This is, this is, but it's real. It's not a game. It's real. And I, I didn't really take it. If I'd have really thought about it, I'd have just gone no comment all the way through. But I was released on bell, which was, which was great. Until they got to start explaining to my family and everyone else and why were the police, when the garage and everything else. So then you're already on this decline. Things are already starting to go very wrong. And then I get arrested again in July by, by, sorry, I was arrested by, even as someone said, SOCA, Cirrus Organised Crime, now known as the NCA, the National Crime Agency, so they're as high up as they get. I was arrested by SOCA then from Gloucestershire, who were doing an investigation with Thames Valley, and they were associated with my suppliers, so they're taking down the whole network now of myself and all my runners, and not so much anyone I'm supplying to because they're not really interested in them, they certainly want to go as a bus, so then all my co-defendants get arrested with Gloucestershire, so I was arrested twice for conspiracy, and then the second one, they actually reminded me in prison, they ever reminded me a week later, I went back to Simon Bell, a week later, it's the right word, we're keeping you in there, I thought, oh great, so that was my first time we're going into prison, that was the, when was that, the fourth, fifth of August, yeah, fifth of August 2011. Did that bear any similarities with when you joined the mob? Yeah, yeah, scary really, because you just automatically default to military mind, and the thing, right, I've got to learn a lot now, I need to adapt to however, whatever's through these doors is going to be unfamiliar, and whoever are through these doors, I don't know who they are, they could be a threat, are they friend, are they foe, you're assessing everyone's friend or foe, friend or foe, most of these people are actually quite benign, and they're not really a problem, they're just going about their daily business, you do go into automatic default, and all of you, all the trainers, which has been 20 years before, however long ago, they're all just suddenly comes flooding back to you, and then so you survive, you adapt to survive in there, and then you go in there, and you think, I think my first thought was, I was in a prison cell all day in Gloucester, with a chap who'd been on the run for God knows how long, and he wasn't too healthy, he smelled bad, he was a heavy smoker, he was a heavy drinker, and we got chatting and he said, do you want to stay on induction with me, because this, I thought this guy's clearly been inside a lot, he knows how it works, he knows what it's like, so I thought, well, better the devil you know, he's not a bad guy, he's just some guy that's been on the street, so I thought, well I'll go on induction with him, because it will make sense, so we arrived on the wing at about seven o'clock on the night in Gloucester prison, which is now closed, I thought, wow, this is great, it's like, it's just like on a telly, but it was really quiet, and you go into your cell, and the first thing that struck me was the fact there was a TV in there, and we've got a telly, that's dead Andy, I thought it was going to be like a room with nothing, like a bucket in the corner, oh we've got a toilet, oh that's fantastic, I thought all the way this is, I've been in worse, it's going to be great, it's going to be fine, so I've dived on a bottom bunk and then I'm led down, and the toilet is right next to my head, literally a foot away, now he's, this guy, I would say his name, nice enough guy, heavy smoker, all he does all night is he's smoking, and drinking prison tea, and the first thing that struck me, which is probably a problem, is he was being given his medication through the hatch in the door, because he can't open the door, they just deliver it through the hatch, and he's on, he's coming off of alcohol, so I think he's given something called Liberium, I think, yeah, is that correct, so he's cheeked it, which means he's put it in his cheek, and he's, he's done that to make sure that he's taken it, but he hasn't, it's in there, and they've gone, and he's sat on his side, and he starts crushing this pill up, I thought, what's he doing? I said, what are you doing, mate? So I'm going to do it this way, I'll get him, I'll get hit off it then, I thought, okay, and that's the kind of thing I need, they're sniffing this pill, whatever format it came in off the side, I thought, great, so now I'm letting this bed all through, all I remember is him smoking, drinking tea, and taking a pee next to my head, and it stinks, because it's, and I could almost taste it, it's that close, and that's my first night in prison was being surrounded, because I'm a non-smoker, being surrounded by smoke, and this guy weeing next to my head all the time, and then just being out, and he didn't sleep, he just seemed to sort of phase in and out of smoking, and drinking his tea, and having a wee, and it was all night, and I thought, gosh, we're put into the same cell, three weeks I spent with him, he was a, he was a nice lad, but not my cup of tea, I was given bell, luckily, fortunately for me, although not for the community, there were the riots kicked off in all the cities in August 2009, 2011, sorry, remember I was kicking off around London in various areas, my brief said, we'll post bell, wait until they finish the rest of people from these riots, because they're going to need the room in the prisons, and we'll get you, we'll get you out, I thought, okay, so on the 9th of September I was given bell, I was released, and then I was put on a tag for nine months waiting for the trial to come through, and I ran trial then for two counts of conspiracy, which was me linking, I was like the link between these two organizations, mine and my suppliers, and I think that they needed the two arrests to have enough evidence to really, to put the net in the coffin for me, if you like, because there was never any drugs or money found on me, they could kind of say lifestyle, but because of the recession it was difficult, all of my accounts were completely wrote off, completely overdrawn, because it was tough times, everything I had was played into the business at the time to try and to make a break, so if I had nothing, I had nothing left, I was totally broke, so they couldn't even do me a lifestyle which was fortunate, so I was found guilty on one count and not guilty on another, and that was probably one of the most difficult three or four days while the jury were out deliberating and deciding whether you're guilty or not is like, that's a tough one, especially when you get the get the tunnel in the court centre, all people in the case of so-and-so, please report back to court number five, anything, here we go, this is it, understanding now, and it was kind of like a, it was up and down, because there were five of us sat in the dock at the time, there was that many of us in the two trials, but they tried me on the one trial with two counts, it was complicated, but basically I stood in the dock with my co-defendants to my right, two on my left, two on my right, and they said, can't you find so-and-so guilty yet guilty, and you see in the public gallery his whole world fall apart, his family, his girlfriend, his wife, people collapsing, people crying, people screaming, then the other co-defendant from Serbia, who was the father of the supply chain, guilty, and then me can't, well, not guilty, I thought, God, I'm not a religious man, but as I said, thank God for that, two guys to my left got not guilty, and I thought, wow, I've got, I've done it, I've got away with this, and I thought, oh no, I've got a count too yet, thank you for Mr Jones on count two guilty, and it was like, I looked across to my wife and her face, you could just see her whole world just fall apart, and you think that there is the punishment alone, and I think the devastation there is really bad. I'm just going to bomber some stuff here, Rich, so that moment when you've got to go back in indoors, stand in the dock and it's like, oh my God, I could have it, my fucking ass handed to me here, had you been able to go back in a time machine and not do any of that stuff, would you have not done it? It's a really good question, because at that point there and then, right there, at that point within a heartbeat, I'd have gone back and I'd have wished I hadn't come out of the army, I would have wished anything to not see my wife's face out to see her world just suddenly get shattered, anything would have changed out, I'd have done it in a heartbeat. Ask the question now with going through what I've been through and the transition and the chance to rethink about everything, no, I had to experience all those bad things to be able to do what I'm doing now, but back then, yeah, in a heartbeat, I would have done anything I could to change everything, let's just get everything and wipe the slate clean. Yeah, so it's the old hindsight, isn't it? And you get the double high, the hindsight at the time is, God, I wish I hadn't done this shit, wish I'd just gone and got a fucking job, right? Yeah, but us looking back now is, hang on, we can't be living in regret, we put it down to experience, we try to do the best we can for society and our community and we try to be a good person, isn't it, Reddy? As much as we can be. You need to own your mistakes, don't you? You need to own it a little bit and work from it, and I think if you can, don't get wrong, there are some offences which you just simply cannot own, some things that people do which are always going to be with them forever and they could never, never use that offence to better anyone's life, but I'm fortunate that my offence I can, and it's not pride or not proud of it, but I can actually say, look, this is what I've done, I've made some really bad mistakes, I've never actually physically hurt anyone intentionally, although people have been hurt, people have been, there is damage along the way, but I'm using this now to do my best to try and help other people, other veterans who, who might think, you know, if I could see, if I could sit back now and look at a version of myself 25 years ago, I'd sit back and think, you are in for it, mate, you are really in trouble, you just doesn't see it. Let's also just for the sake of balance and not deluding ourselves as we do as a society all the time, right, it's a two-way door, mate, then people that bought off you didn't give a fuck whether you were going to get arrested the next day and lose. Interesting point, yeah. They, they, and I'm not blaming them, I'm saying that we make choices in life, you know, we make them, we have to live by them, it's just the way it is, you weren't twisting anyone's arm, you weren't down at the school playground handing out freebie samples to get people, you know, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to excuse anything, I'm just saying it, how it is, right? Yeah, and I think it's an interesting point because you can, a lot of it, people think about self-preservation, don't they, that most people most of the time are going to worry about themselves and how, how things affect them, a lot of veterans tend to sort of be out with thinking and care more about people around them and certainly your brothers and your sisters, you think more about how they're going to be and you're right, if, if, if there was an arrest above me in the chain, I was quite happy to take supply from them, they'd been nicked, that affects me, I'm not part of me thinking well that's it, that's done, we all knew what we signed up for when we did this, when we made these deals we know what we're signing up for, no one's being forced or co-hearced into anything, this is all free will, doesn't make it right, it just means that people go in there with their eyes wide open and if their eyes aren't wide open they need to open their eyes and look around a little bit because if people are going to step into any form of the arena with, with not just drugs, any criminality, there's going to be damage, it's illegal for a reason, you know, because there, there is going to be cost, there's going to be damage, there's going to be pain, there's going to be victims, there's always a victim of anything, anything which as a negative consequence is going to be a victim somewhere along the line and if I, if someone said to me do you think about your victims and when you're supplying that much you don't directly see a victim as such, not like I'm going right to someone's house in the hand and I'm a, a bag of heroin and seeing them decline and seeing them getting kicked out of the house, seeing them lose everything they own, you, you're so detached from that that you don't see it but if someone said how many victims are there in mind, it's countless, countless victims, thousands and thousands of people have suffered in some way or other, it could be really insignificant, they might, they might have just missed, they might not be able to afford to buy their favorite, you know, favorite food because they spent a little bit too much money on, on Coke the weekend before and they just can't quite afford to buy something the following week, they haven't gone hungry for that there as a victim. Richard, I'm not trying, well maybe I am trying to play devil's advocate and I'm also trying to just shed light on this situation so we can start dealing with it as adults, yeah, right, as a society I mean, as opposed to this bloody childish name calling and, and superstition and, and etc, etc, etc. I'm just going to say no, those people are victims probably a childhood trauma, right, yeah, yeah, they are victims to other people that I'm not defending drug, if anyone's listening and thinks that then you, you really misunderstand me, right, I'm trying to make the world better for all of us, right and I have that insight because I've been on these sides of the fence, right, what I'm saying is, you know, you've got 10 people in a room on a Saturday night, they've all had a Bacardi and Coke, they're waiting for their guy to come, you know, come on, who hasn't been there, everyone's chucking in the fifties, a ton, two, there's like a thousand pound in your hands, yeah, you, is he called yet, is he, you know, dealers that shut the fuck up, if you call me again, I ain't coming, if I say I'm coming, I'm coming, all right, yeah, sorry mate, sorry mate, right, here he comes, oh wait mate, want to drink, want to drink, yeah, do you want, do you want one, it's, is anyone fucking forcing those people, no, no, what it is is for various different reasons, sometimes just like the example I gave you, this is social, you've got to get with your mates on Saturday night, you know, instead of downing a bottle of JD and puking over the, you know, the girl sat next year, you just want to have a bit of sniff and I'm not saying that's good or bad, I'm just saying that's what it is, right, I think that's a really good point because the amount of phone traffic you get at a certain level, when you're certainly selling the, the, the grams to the people and this wasn't ASMR's privy to, but the amount of phone traffic going incoming calls to someone who's selling compared to outgoing calls is phenomenal, you're right, are you that, well, are you going to be long because everyone's waiting there and something you're mindful of it, a certain point is supply, I've got to make sure this gets to this point here to be there, to be there, to be ready for the weekend, so we start our week of supply on like a Tuesday to ensure that it gets to where it needs to go ready for that weekend, so you're right, that the traffic is usually incoming and say where are you, where are you, where are you? Yeah, and what I was getting to Rich is like, you're looking at a guy, anyone's watching this now, I, anyone around would say I lost everything, right, I didn't, I actually gain the world through my experiences and I'm, I wouldn't change him for a thing, right, I haven't made any mistakes in my life, Rich, because if you meet my son, he's the most perfect little boy in the world, I'm, I'm, I am the luckiest man alive to have the best son in the world, right, if I hadn't done all this stuff that I wouldn't have in, and no, you know, no one takes him away from me, right, and I've even begun to tell you about my partner, right, I'm a very lucky man, the choices I made in my life led me, I'm not saying other people do what I did, they led me here, and if people think I'm going to fucking apologize, you go fuck yourselves, you know, you live in the delusion called the matrix, right, all I'm saying is, is I was mentally unwell, I was pissing off the Hong Kong triads, I was doing silly stuff like handstands on skyscrapers, right, my parents were faced with the, you know, the medical professionals said to my dad, Steve, you need to put them in a mental health unit and you probably won't ever come out, right, that's how ill I was, right, my point is no one ever forced me into that situation, Rich, no drug dealer, I needed that outlet for this trauma that was driving my behavior, it was the trauma, right, no one forced me to do, you know, if you'd said no, Chris, you're looking a bit ropey, mate, you're looking a bit, all right, Rich, yeah, probably told you some fable, right, I want a liar per se, but I wouldn't have wanted you to know actually how ill I was, because I want you to think I'm cool, right, I'd have just gone to the next guy and told them whatever story they wanted to hear, to be able, you know, and like, yeah, again, I'm not trying to do, defend anything, I'm just trying to add clarity to it all, and yeah, I see people, because of our society, we have to like, apologize for our beer, and it's like, hang on, the whole, we should be looking at why do people suffer trauma, what is it that's driving that trauma, why are parents, for example, putting that trauma on kids, look at the situation at the moment, let's not say any names, how many kids are at home now being abused, right, because of the situation, how many wives are being battered, how many husbands are being battered, right, mental health is taking back, how much trauma is going to come out of this, and then when that little kitty gets to 15 and has a sniff problem, because they feel like not the beaten abused little kid anymore, then you put them in prison, or you get the person that sold them that and blame it all on them, we are deluded in this society, we are utterly deluded, we don't understand that a substance is just a plant that grows in a dirt, that's all it is, right, okay it can be processed for a factory into something, but it's in inanimate objects, it's as stupid as that pen, right, the notion that that can give me a mental health problem is just beyond stupid, right, the driver is our life experience most often, childhood, not always, you know, but there is something missing in your life, isn't it, if you have to be waiting for that dealer on a Friday night, come on guys, chip in, is he here yet, you know, we need to answer that question, sorry folks, going off on one there, but I'm not afraid to tell the truth, mate, because people can think what they want from me and they very often do, and that's cool, because you know, we're all going to die, who gives a fuck, right, that's it, but at least when I die I was honest and I want, you know, I want a coward, well, probably I'm at some things, but yeah, bloody fascinating Rich, you know, I think you probably cleared up a lot of stuff, well between us, that hopefully can help, there's all, we could talk again and again, let's finish off in a set by talking about your actual prison time, you made me laugh when you say induction, anyone who's ever joined the Marines knows well before, I'll tell you the story, when we joined it was induction, right, you're in there for a brainwashing, right, that's what the military is, right, it's a great brainwashing in the Marines, it's fucking brilliant, you know, there's aspects of it that most of the time it's brilliant, you can't defend everything, right, but it's called induction for a reason, no, now it's called foundation. Oh really, that's very political, isn't it? I'll be honest, that's a beautiful word as well, because of the back of my time in the forces, it was a foundation that I've launched, you know, I've taken the good from it, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah. We'll come back to your prison time, because that's just, you know, I've narrowly avoided prison, the most I've done is nights in the cells, again, that's enough to make you go, oh Christ, why did I do that, you know, but yeah, so far, mate, just want to thank you for being brave enough to tell your story, being a beacon of light, also we must talk about your involvement in charity, yeah, before we go, and of course we're going to shout your book, so one sec, so Rich, we were saying about the, what's it like to be military and go in jail, yeah, did you have any kind of, so how many years did you get and how many years did you serve? So a sense of 15 years, because I was expecting about 10 or 11, which is still a lot, but a sense of 15 years, so the way that it works then, and it is slightly different now, depending on certain factors, but you'll do half of that in custody, so seven and a half years, but what they will do, they will take away any time on remand and any time on tag, if you're curfew to more than 12 hours in your house, they'll take it off your sentence, so that's four and a half months of my sentence was reduced because it was on bail, because I couldn't go out in the house for that duration, so the fact that I did just over seven years in prison in one hit, I'm still on licence now until 2027. Right, was that, where were you, like Exeter Bristol or something? So yeah, so initially in Gloucester, as I said, for those five weeks on remand, and then when I was found guilty on May the 17th 2012, remanded into Bristol, which was an experience, it's not a night, it was worse now, it wasn't great then, it's old Victorian prison, even the new wings are rough, you know, and my experience on there, and I'll go into that now, is you first arrive and you're in a holding cell where everyone has just come from court, these guys may have been out for the day in a court appearance, so they've already come out of the prison, so they're just flowing through the system, or you'd be getting newly inducted into the prison, so you're there with people that were with my co-defendants and other people, and you're weighing each other up automatically, because you don't know who these people are, what they're in for, what they've done, and they're thinking the same thing about you, so automatically I'm just, veterans do it, you're just assessing people, there's no point in assessing the exits and ways and the ways out, because you ain't getting out, so that kind of gets taken away from you, so you've got to do is focus on the people, the individuals and listen to the noises next door in the admissions or the reception department where they process you into the prison, that's what you're waiting for, so you're already automatically, I think your first bit, even before that when you get put into the old GOA me or the G4S or circuit buses, the sweatboxes we called them, a little tiny cubicle, not much bigger than being stuck inside of a big fridge to be fair, that's for me was comfortable because I'm a tank gunner, I'm fine with that, I'm used to looking out of a little window, I'm comfortable with this, not a problem, but other people are already banging their doors, already kicking or kicking off, so you're hearing the chaos of what your life's going to be like for the next, you're not thinking seven years, you're not thinking 15 years, you're just thinking it's a long time, so you go into the call through to the reception and you sit in front of a member of staff, I call them staff because they're people that are doing the job, a lot of them are ex-forces, treating them with respect and they will definitely treat you with respect, you know, yeah you give me, yeah Jones come here, it's great just like being back in the army and love it, perfect, some guys take exception, oh I'm not Jones, I'm called so and so, that's your name, the speakers you just do as you're told and they'll identify various things about your healthcare needs and your mental health and physical problems, any allergies, all these sort of things where we come from, did you serve any armed forces, yes I did and you declare that, I declared it because one of them thought well why not, secondly it's going to have to give me a break at some point, surely that must be, that must count for something somewhere in my life, you know, and then thirdly is it, have they served in the forces, are you going to get a little bit of a touch on the wing, you know, you're weighing up this survival of what can I do, am I going to get through this, what's in front of me, because I just don't know, first time in prison and then you move from this, you're giving some food, now you see in prisoners who've got trusted jobs, they're giving you your food, first chance of eating, well not the first, but first time in Bristol, eating prison food, diabolical, it's horrendous, I mean it makes the stuff in the cookhouse look great, it's really poor, and then you go on to the wing, and I've been on the wing before in Gloucester but Bristol wing was bigger, it was three floors rather than two, and I'm sorry four floors rather than two, it's like this is huge but again it's night time, they're all locked up, no one's there, so yeah the first night was okay, you're in prison if you're closed because everything gets taken off of you, you're searched, you're checked thoroughly for anything, you go into the, into your cell and the girls, there was a nice guy, he was suffering with some health issues, he was like another one, we in all night, why do I get these people around on the toilet all night, problem with his with his gland somewhere, either way by the bite, so I went out for exercise the following morning which was the Friday, so I thought I'm gonna go on the yard get some fresh air, it was a spring, it was actually a really hot spring in 2012, a little yard, there were only four of us went on there, me two guys, different nationalities, I think I was the only guy from the UK on there, and I was walking around the yard and just on my own not really bothered about other people, just just minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said I want you in for me, just being fine guilty of conspiracy, blah blah blah, and he's, we're talking about you, he's just the same thing, he's just he's just on been remanded, so people on remand are very paranoid people because you haven't yet had their case come through, so they're always thinking that who's on the cover, what's going on, and within five minutes he peeled away from me, spoke to his mate, a big black lad, then he come back to me, my next lap, you go round and circles around the yard, you've got to walk, you can't do straight, you've got to do a lap, come back, and he starts, his tone had changed, and I understand why, he would say well I didn't really do it anyway, he's quite defensive, and isn't to say that he was trying to plead his innocence, whereas before he was talking about his case quite openly, now he wasn't, what the hell's going on here, so a few days passed and realized that people on the wing was looking at me in a really weird way, and it's a big wing, he's talking, I think there's got to be a couple hundred people on there, maybe more than that, no one was talking to me, so eventually I moved on to another wing where my co-defendants were, and a few days passed and they found out, do you realize what the rumour was on G-wings, also I know they thought you were undercover police, because of how I looked, I had a wedding ring on the time, and the whole mentality of the people on that, not all of them, but certainly the majority thought I was undercover police because I conducted myself, you don't look like a criminal, you don't come across as your agent. When you hold yourself as a service person, people, they sense something, and when you're in the paranoia of the drug world, and I had this several times over the years, they see your short back and sides, well, very short back and sides, now it's short fucking everything, but they see that, and they mistake it for, you know, they think, oh yeah, I get it, yeah. I was told a few people said you were, because of, I encourage yourself, nobody attacked me, because I was like hyper-vigilant, and we are, we can't help but be hyper-vigilant, and I was, I wasn't going to stay in the, in myself, I'm going out, if someone's got a problem, they've got a problem, let's just deal with it, and deal with it, don't want to, but you have to, and yeah, when I found out they all thought I was undercover, it was more of a case of, you just need to get stabbed or cut from behind, you know, that's what it would amount it to, so, but the difficult thing was, even though I was on my wing, and I had my co-defendants who've been there on my man for about a year, had vouched me and said, no, this guy is not undercover, trust me, we know he's not undercover, no, he's definitely undercover, they're so ignorant, because they're just judging you by how you look, their perception of someone that's involved in that level of criminality, looks a certain way, acts a certain way, they're of a certain, maybe a certain nationality or skin colour, they just couldn't relate to me, it couldn't relate to me that I was actually who I was, and that I'd done the offence that I had done, so it seemed really odd, but yeah, it was a bit worrying, because then I'm thinking, well, I've now got to watch my back, I haven't done anything wrong, but I've got to watch my back, and that was the difficult thing about being in Bristol on my man, I was there for five weeks until sentencing, because at this point I didn't know how long I was going to be doing, I just knew that I'd been remanded for that offence, sentencing came on the 29th of June, about five weeks later, where they hit me with the 15, and my co-defendants got 18 each, and they were the highest, I was an expert there, and there was a number of different sentences all the way down through all of us, and then we were moved from, we call it a black and white, which is HMP, which is the public sector prisons, and I'll explain this in a set, to a prison called Loudham Grainge, which is in Nottingham, run by Circo, so it's a private prison, now you've got two kinds of jail, now there are four, I think there's something in the region of, let's say 40 prisons in the UK, I don't know how many there are, there's quite a few, 14 of which, now I think 13 now, because one of them has lost the contract, are privately run, they take a tender from the government, and they run the prison as a business for private security, so you've got Circo, G4S, and Sodexo, the French company, who own or run these 14 or 13 prisons, so when you go into the private sector, it totally changes, because you no longer look at a prison officer who's working for the government in a black and white, they're in G4S uniforms or Circo uniforms, first name terms, they'll call me Rich, I'll call him Dave, you know, and it's, oh this class is great, and the prisons are new, you know, this Lab and Grange at the time in 2012 was only 14 years old, now prison terms, that's brand new, you walk in it's like, I guess they're not trying to make it sound nice, but it was really nice, compared to Bristol, where people have been taking a dump on the floor and shitting everywhere, this was really nice, it was single cells, we had digital TV, we had at one point sky TV, we had telephones in our cell, we had to pay for the use of the phones, pay for the calls you would do normally, we had the showers in your cell, everything, and if this is as bad as it gets, and this ain't bad at all, so that kind of already you're thinking, well at least this part is boxed off, I'm comfortable, the food's still crap, but at least I'm comfortable in myself, I've got my own privacy, I've got my phone, I've got my television, and you can work you out of the tier system to a point where you've got a three tier system in the prison, and it's called the IEP, and if no one's ever heard this before, you've got, you come into the prison as a standard level, which means you get three, I think about three visits, you're allowed to earn a certain wage by a certain pay band, and you can have a certain amount when he's sent in to you, plus you can, that's where your prison status is, you are at standard. Now if you demonstrate that you're trustworthy and you're behaving yourself, you're not causing problems, after about 10 weeks you can be raised to enhanced level, which means you get another visit, means you can earn more money, you can be a higher pay band, and you can earn these privileges, you can then have a stereo, you can have an Xbox, a DVD player, so you then start making life as comfortable as you can, you can then get a better job in the prison, so you can earn better wages, you can buy nicer food for yourself, so you talk to or demonstrate if you can behave, you can have it pretty good, because with every job in prison comes its perks, you might get a job in the kitchen, you can actually cook the food yourself rather than it being destroyed by the people cooking it for you, so you might be able to have something like a piece of cheesecake, you don't get that for your dessert, but to make it fresh and eat it yourself, it's just, it's the simplest things, and what you learn is to suddenly realise that the most simplest things in life hold a value, they become cherished, and you relearn what's important in life, like your family, like your friends, you learn to live with nothing, so everything means something, and that's what I find from it is the simplest pleasure in life, which you cannot have in prison, like walking through a field, hate it with a pack on my back, but it's lovely when you just get a chance to do it with just because you can, so all of a sudden your mentality changes, and that's what you need to do is adjust your mentality, so I spent two and a half years in that prison, and I engage with the veteran system, so there are veterans in custody, I'll probably go on, I'll go on to this now because I think this is kind of the path that I took, and I was offered the opportunity to sort of like be a key player in the veterans at Loudon Grains, but it was difficult because category B in category A prisons, and they run in the tier of security, A is the high security, then it's B, then it's C, then it's D, then you're out. Category A prisons in some of the Bs, there are a lot of extremism going on in these places, and unfortunately these guys tend to run the wings because they've got that many people behind them, fanatics and extremism, that most or a lot of veterans have to stay underground, they can't always declare a service because they become a target, wearing a poppy can be problematic in some of these prisons because you're then putting a target on your chest, you know, this is really difficult, and in the category B it was hard to declare to be a veteran, the services weren't really there because they weren't really catering for it, or they're unable to cater for it. It changed into a category C called HMPO Group, which is my opinion and of a lot of others is a brilliant prison, it's graded number one in the UK because of the director, and he's a brilliant man, and the staff that work with him are exceptional because of his ethos into the prison is something else, you know, he will empower you to follow your dreams, as long as his dreams are true and you're not going to cause harm, so you've got a genuine idea and it's good, it's for the better for yourself or for other people, you'll encourage you to follow that and he will facilitate you that, and I'll go into that in a sec. So I moved to HMPO Group, which is in Wolverhampton, I could have come down to near Bristol, I could have come down to Earl Stoke, which is in Devises, which is a good job but it's not private and Oakwood is private run by G4S, I went there because I had single cells, I had the shower in a cell, I had the phone, I had all the same stuff that I was used to and that got me through the first two and a half years of my sentence, so why would I change that, because I could be in Devises, I'm still locked up or I could be in Wolverhampton, I'm still locked up and my wife at the time said, look it's up to you, if you're you're only seeing us once every couple of weeks, why would you deprive yourself of all these nice things and be in a different prison just for sake of an hour's visit, when if you're in your own cell you can ring us every night, you're not standing in a queue on the wing to use a public phone and everyone hearing you saying how much you love me or how upset you are or how worried you are about the kids, you know so that private phone and that facilities in HMPO Group have made a massive difference and it's a huge thing, honestly it is such a big deal to have those simple things to out those family ties and speak to people when you want Christmas Day, can you imagine, everybody wants to make a phone call Christmas Day to their family, you've got two phones on the wing, you've got 89 people all on a ring up and say happy Christmas, can you imagine the pressure that you'd have on these wings without these phones in your cell, you know it's invaluable honestly it makes such a difference, so I arrived at Oakwood and I was, there was a great man called Ian Rock, he's since passed of cancer several years ago and he was XRMP and he was the manager on a wing called Douglas Wing which is where I went, it was a lifers wing and long-termers wing, he got me on there within about five weeks of landing in Oakwood, the following month this was in January 2015 he gave me a job as a veterans representative and the guys at the time in there weren't really proactive, they were veteran reps but they weren't really doing anything about it, they were too busy in life and I thought now this thing could we got guys in here, so I started to go around the wings, find the veterans, check the list I had if it was valid, if it was up to date and just create a new list and started to publicise it through the system now, the good thing with these private gels is that in the older prisons if you want to apply for anything it's all done on apps or applications, paper they get lost, most of private gels got an ATM or electronic kiosk touchscreen, you input your, it's biometrics so you input your number and you scan your fingerprint it opens up your login, your details and you can order your food, you can order your, you can book your visits, you can top up your phone credit, you can do anything on there, so you can also get notices coming through on that, it's for general notices to see, so I put out notices on there through the staff to say are you a veteran, have you served this so blah blah blah, cool contact, that's some more coming to find you, so I spent a couple of years building this veteran database, sorting out meetings, getting Saffa to come in and look at the guys who are due for release, what did they need when they're getting out and where are they going, have they got someone to live, have they got any issues they need to sort of pick up with and trying to get, reboot the whole veteran support and open and over the first year or so I'd sort of support that many veterans, I'd identify, I would spend a lot of time chatting in yourselves, talking about the problems that you've had, these are guys in for all different offenses but the offense kind of gets left at the door a little bit, what I was looking at is the difficulty in their transition of what got you in jail, why did it go so bad and I've noticed so many similarities in what these guys had faced and what they'd experienced and even some of the staff suffered the same problems because we had staff on the meetings, we had a network of staff that served which were really supportive and I thought to myself when you arrive in jail probation will set you a sentence plan and this helps you to address your offending behavior and part of this may include you, one of you behaving and not reoffending but some of it is actually one that put you on a course so if you're in for alcohol you might have to do a substance misuse course or if you're in for violence you have to do some sort of anger management and these sort of things and I thought there's no courses here really which address veterans for our mentality and our mindset and if you put a veteran on anger management course or veteran on a mental health course and say why do you keep flying off the handle mate and he's not going to talk about his PTSD in front of people which he doesn't know, you've already lost him straight away and they ain't going to understand it anyway are they not a bit service based? No that's right if someone's got PTSD from an accident or understand them but combat related and I can't say I've not got combat related PTSD but I understand the guys, I understand what they could have gone through so I look back and I did some research as much as I could so are there any courses which are written for veterans in prison to help us to address our mentality? No nothing right so I wrote one so I sat there I'd access to a laptop through my job as a mentor and I wrote a course or program based on my journey coming out of the army of all the different things of all the different areas I knew I'd gone wrong in and I wrote a 12 module course which I then delivered to veterans in custody to start off as a few case studies RAF, Royal Navy, Army, everyone went across the board a couple of Marines did everyone across and I got the case study results back in presented that to the director and they said right okay that's really good we wanted to run it as a pilot in 2017 so I ran a five course program through 2017 as a pilot course which I did and that worked out really well and then I started delivering the course officially in HMP but in 2018 prior to my release 2019 so while I was inside I was as well as developing my own release plans and coming out of prison I started to deliver this course to veterans in custody about their mentality and 12 modules I'm going to forget them but the first one links about mentality and risk-taking behaviour which is a big deal for most of us anyway that's one of the key areas that we suffer with relationships about how we adjust and our relationships change and we come out the forces because we do change ourselves you know we we go through this fundamental change of being someone who's served to a veteran not a certain bit of veteran and we go through a lot of changes and people around us are going to have to absorb those changes I dealt with trust more biggest error as me was trusting I trust I trust everyone because I'm used to trusting people or not trust anyone substance misuse mental health being realistic with yourself about these ridiculous dreams that we are about achieving anything which we know we can surrender by like-minded company as a group of soldiers you can achieve massive things but you take that one person out and try and do it on your own with your civilian counterparts you're going to struggle so it's about setting yourself to be realistic and understand that you're going to fall I'm going to fail I have achievable goals employment debt and money management you know looking after stuff there are so many different things I want to focus on and that's where I was when I left when I left in July 19 the plan was and is to go back into HMP Oakland and deliver this course under funding to veterans in custody unfortunately there were certain things happened last year around about spring which which put a hold on that which we're going to readdress that as and when things potential normality because there's a lot of lockdowns going on you know which we have to understand right now well let's not go getting political but but because because we do that every podcast but let's just remember all these people now that could be having your wonderful service yeah be going on to be happy productive producing mentally well balanced people like like we have become yeah they're all denied that now yeah in case somebody 85 year old with an underlying heart condition might get the flu and die you know it's difficult it's a really bitter pill to swallow but it's it's you know this I'm I'm very verbal about it mate because you know we're in a veterans suicide epidemic now you know mental health in this country is just at an all-time high yeah um just when you think you're getting on top of things like child abuse spousal abuse out you know substance a wealth we we we just kicked all kicked the ass you know excuse me we just kicked all that in in into touch and yeah it's unacceptable it's just unacceptable um and why well goes back to big pharmaceutical again in it to make these sociopaths rich that's all it's about um there's some respects that a bit I've still got great support from the from the prisons um even the military I mean I've so so privileged to whilst I was still in in custody you get released on think with rottle which is released on temporary license mean I'll let you out for the day maybe on the supervision maybe not and number of occasions I've been I've been into rf costford I've delivered a presentation to all the staff there I've been into uh two two signals in Stafford delivered there I was the first person to ever go into uh a police training school in ports ed near Bristol and talked about veterans in custody about projects it as the course I wrote about the the journey the veterans face and why some of us may offend and since then even some have set up a veterans champion network with the support of veterans so I've been really fortunate that people have bought into what I'm trying to do and despite what's going on at the minute they're it's still all there waiting to happen how have how have you been received then rich as a person with your history by these by the veterans community etc etc really well you get you're always going to get someone who's going to take it for face value and maybe say something slightly derogatory but that's something I'm ready for and and to be fair I expect and wouldn't I'd be stupid to not accept the fact some people are going to take exception and to my background you're going to get people are going to say things but do you know what the vast majority and I'm talking 99% and even more than that are really good they're very very welcoming when they look a bit deeper into it first thing they'll see is drug dealer scum yeah agreed but look a little bit further and look at what I'm trying to do now and then they also they they they do tend to come at you do you know what make fair play thank you for what you're trying to do because I'm not sort of person that'll sit around and just do nothing you know I have to be active I have to keep doing and I've got I've got more to prove the most I feel like I need to make up for a lot of years which I wasted being greedy looking after myself I think I've got a lot a lot of ground to make up and you're going to get many people more determined as someone has been inside and it's turned their life around I've got excuses mate absolutely I keep pulling the mic down by the way because there's an overgrown woodpecker hammering at the office next door I might go out on my 12 born in it and yeah just going on I might this is um yeah God excuse me I was going to go off at a tangent and but and um just one question I had so did it ever kick off in the prison and had you adopted any kind of strategy if it did no do you know I can't believe it I was expecting it to be a rough ride I was expecting it to always be some kind of scrapping and fighting and it never was I mean I think the thing is if you're you're going in there expecting to be fighting you're going to be fighting you're going to be having problems because that's your your approach if you go in there expecting just to survive and you just assess it as it is you look back to well the people what the only reason people end up scrapping is because they're usually up to no good and it's a territorial thing or it's a money or a debt of some kind generally speaking it's down to a debt or an ego if you don't have any of those and you're not going to have a problem I didn't have any not one incident I had one guy I put him his place two guys I put in their place um but that was that was just the if you smile a lot people get used to smiling when you when you suddenly don't smile they know that you're they know you're serious and that's usually enough you know and there's only two people ever out to sort of let's say like rain it mate you're going too far and they do it's because people people will push you a little bit maybe they're having issues in their own life that's not my problem no I was lucky maybe I don't think even any of my co-defendants are problems but the nature of our offense with it being a big deal in the press and they might have us that were in there the wings that you're on the people you're around the most people are likely to cause a problem just don't even see you as somebody want to go near you know there is a hierarchy in prison lifers people have organized crime and aren't robberies are generally floating at the top somewhere so most of the people who are going to be the so your scallies who are going to be in for the street robberies they're they're the more violent individuals that are in there but they don't even come near us they just they just they avoid us if anything and it's not out of fear I don't even have respect I think it's just they just think well they're not interested we're on a whole different level you know they're in for street crimes and that's their thing we're not so no I was really lucky no I didn't I witnessed some pretty rough things self-harm horrendous the amount of self-harm that you actually get exposed to inside it happens all the time but most people don't actually see it or witness it or or even have to to manage it themselves but that's something I learned a lot inside was about self-harm is is frightening and the the lengths that some people would go to to do this self-harm and I've seen some I thought I seen blood I've seen a lot of blood I've seen a lot of blood you know it's well look at Chopper Reed one of world's hardest men chop chops his own ears off because he can knock it in yeah one particular wing a witness a guy do that take his own ear off with us with a plastic dinner knife he's like it's just taking off because he that was in the block in Loudon Grange he had enough he just managed to get the top of it off and thought well why why I was working broadly at the time I can understand now now I know more about self-harm back then I was just new I think but now I've learned a lot more about mental health and coping mechanisms and strategies and and life changing experiences when you're young I can understand why it comes out now you know but back then it's like I don't get it I don't get it and lot of people love that same impression but you need to understand the person and one of my jobs inside was you get things called listeners and it's a person or prisoner who is trusted and trained by the Samaritans to carry out the role of a Samaran on the wings and you'll be on call 24 hours a day and what you do is if there's a resident who's in crisis you'd be called as a pair or two of you as listeners to go into this person's cell I sit down with them and help them through a difficult time not to advise but to listen to what they're saying and you'll sit there and you listen to them and you listen to a lot of people who've got major issues it's taken advantage of people see it is another way to get things from A to B some people actually actively become listeners in order to to find it as a way to get transport items from one part of the prison to another because someone will say yeah I need a listener and they'll know that this guy on certain wing is a listener and I hope these the ones going to come to that cell so it's very clever how the the staff do it because it's on a rotor and it's random so you won't necessarily get the same listener come through but that's something else so I'm trained as a as a as a partner as a Samaritan to help people through bad times so I understand I've heard a lot of people say about they've gone back about how they are and it's just it's quite worrying the thing that after these people in prison probably shouldn't even be in there you know they certainly should be somewhere more the therapy is what's needed not locking up but unfortunately the system doesn't know how to cope with someone is problematic if they're kicking off and they've got issues with psychosis or you know paranoia there's something there's a reason for that it may be drug induced but as the reason is the drug induced because they've got problems from the past as you said Chris so they put them in prison when really the safest place is to be in a hospital where they can get looked at assessed and correctly medicated and treated and that's not what's happening they've been put in prison and given other medication which may be keeping quiet but it's not dealing with their demons no yeah it's all right but I never never experienced anything negative personally apart from when my my dad had a stroke and a severe accident that was probably the phone call I was wishing I was hoping I was never going to get he didn't die survive luckily but it's horrific you know it's touch and go for quite a while and I was actually taken out I'm taken out in cuffs to go back and the Bristol to visit my dad as as known as an end of life visit in other words to say goodbye dad I love you you're gonna die you didn't die survive it means tough tough as an old boot but that was difficult that was difficult but other than that fairly fairly straightforward mate and your book Charlie four kilo it's doing well mate yeah do you know what we it was my plan B uh when I was on trial I thought I hope I get away with this and I'm gonna settle under the sunset and be a really good boy and if I don't I have to write a book about it because I think I've got enough content to do something so it kind of remained dormant for quite a while because you can't actually write a book inside because it has to be on pen and paper and I have to redo it again and things change and things move on and but the book was always an it was always an idea and when I was doing these lucky to do these various talks and presentations to the police and some military bases and various other places so I usually write a book written I thought I am thinking about it so I started writing it in when I was being released on on a on a daily basis to to work in the the local visiting centre for the prison I had access to a laptop I've always got access to a laptop and I start writing now I've got another year and a year before I'm out let's start getting it down now didn't really have the name for it I was going to call it the lost soldier but with a lack of access to digital media that that name had already been taken under a couple of different things a book and a game and I thought yeah but that was the mindset so I started writing it and then when I came out last year went very quiet so I had time inside just to to focus on writing and luckily I found a good friend of the family Chuck called Chris Knot did a book called called Sign Chopper and he he said oh if you thought about book yourself and I said well I have started writing it but I can't find anyone to publish you I can't find a literary agent he said well I've got a guy so I spoke to Chuck with Robert Colpepper and he said we'll do the whole process for you we'll take you for the original manuscript he said when you're done I said well I think I'm about 70 or 1000 words and he said well bear in mind every the average book is looking at 80 to 85,000 words otherwise it's going to be a little bit too heavy I said oh crap I'm nearly there then I thought I'm only half way so I've had to split this one into into two parts so yeah I wrote Chuck so we went for the name Charlie 4 kilo for two reasons phonetic alphabet it's technically a call sign I don't know who's with mine now I guess and for the obvious fact it is Charlie and it's four kilos which I thought ran well with the industry I came from so it's kind of a nice amalgamation of the the the military and the organized crime side so I finished it last spring and it's taken a while to get it published in typeset and proof reading all the the stuff that you go through you know that works and it finally got released December last year so it's only just come out it's just it's just come out and it's it's ticking over I've just started the PR now I don't know where I was going because we don't know from don't quite know yet from the production how many copies have been sold I don't know I've broken any records yet but it is early days and it's a slow burner but it's I've got so much content I can't do it in one book I've got to do four by I think we can dispense with the microphone intrusion is the woodpecker has stopped the shotgun is safely in its cabinet no folks I haven't got a shotgun um yeah my best advice to you mate if you want a career in this game yeah with that game the writing game is get you get your second book done then you get third fourth but until you've got six or seven they don't bounce off each other yeah yeah you see a lot of first-time authors do is just try to kick the house kick your ass out of promoting one book yeah or one book to one person they're gonna talk to maybe one other person about it when you've got 10 books to 10 people talking to 10 other people recommending to post into social then suddenly you you actually start to make a really decent well you know can make a really decent return and with the audiobooks seen now there's another yeah I'm going to start the audiobook in the spring I'm going to do it myself I've got to learn to speak properly first so I don't ever go at that yeah you've got the fine voice for it you yours would be good done yourself I reckon yeah so I'm happy with it it's just I mean it starts at part two which is a section of my life which is absolute pandemonium I thought well I'll start at part two because it literally takes a segment six months of my life which involves you know a few police arrests and a few things going on in my life and it just it sees my it really brings through the stress of as we spoke about the world that I was involved in and it shines a light on the difficulties faced by a veteran and it is from a veteran's perspective as well not just someone involved but someone who's served in the forces and I try to make it relatable and it takes to a point where you know where I leave on a cliffhanger because of the other things which happens I move over to start doing things overseas but it's all about paying a debt off basically what do you do what do you do Rich when you're not writing well at the minute I've you know coming out of prison at the age of well now I'm 51 though I was like just approaching 49 you're not that employable so I was was working with um this is all stuff which is still happening but we're doing it differently at the minute I I assist Saffa with training sessions with their staff that go into prisons um I'll give them a talk about what to expect the sort of things a veteran will be suffering with so I kind of give them a bit of a highlight on the areas of concern which they're going to look at just give them a sitting going over their eyes wide open what what to expect what to see so do a training session with Saffa I do I'm setting something that we'll have costs for it to go in and do talks with their recruits in the training camp about substance misuse and there's something I'm looking at with different bases again it hasn't quite gone off yet um I've engaged with the MCTC to look at going down and speaking to guys being discharged with substance misuse against them and looking at delivering project TLS to them as a course as a part of their their transition out of um out of the MCTC I'm trying to engage with them again that was at the back end of 2019 uh so there's loads of doing and you know at the minute I'm working with some good friends company called we like to move it they give me a job and this is totally foreign for me working in removals I am literally keeps me fit keeps me healthy a couple of days a week just to get enough money to survive on but enough to keep my as I got not projects here this is a non-profit organization where I work with these guys of removals they donate me furniture through people that are say downsizing in the house allows me to run my furniture bank for veterans who are moving in so I haven't got anything so I've now got a load of stuff for donations to guys who and girls are moving in somewhere and they might need a unit or a wardrobe or bed so I've got that I've got a food bank going with Greg's foundation where we collect unsold food on the night and deliver that to veterans who need it so there's plenty of things that I'm doing keeping me busy uh I'm just waiting for the course of recent a chat with a large private healthcare company want me to go back into the prison deliver my course across the Midlands we're just looking at this hopefully this month if we get the green light on that that'll be that'll be life changing it means I can deliver that course to all the veterans in the Midlands are inside which would be fantastic so there's plenty I'm I'm doing and and right in the minute is probably the on the on the side I just want to so we'll give it a few months get the audiobook done and I'll start part two back in the summer I think and just dive into that but a lot of it is really hanging in the balance depending on what goes on with this healthcare company if I get a thumb thumbs up on that I'll know my routine then I'll know what time I've got aside what I'm working if I don't get a thumbs up on that for now I'll just have to wait until things sort of settle down this year see where it goes so the minute I'm doing everything I'm a dad I've got two sons well they're growing up by so much on the kids yeah see how I'm I'm pretty busy pretty busy good man rich listen massive thank you for coming on the podcast I'm a very lucky man mate that I get to just sit and chat to wonderful people with amazing stories that are doing so much for our veterans family and it's not just that is it this is this is an education for all people that you know you didn't hear this stuff when I was a young person no one was rushing out to help me when I was you know living in utter squalor not far from death most of the time so thank you ever so much I'm going to put your links below the video okay thank you so anyone listening this rich is your man if you need some some consultancy advice you know you're in a situation where you you need some answers they there you go you know and obviously we'll put the link for your book as well thank you Chris and just just stay on the line rich so massive thank you to you mate I really really appreciate it massive love as always to all of our subscribers you guys are really just turning into an awesome well you probably already were an awesome bunch of people but the kind comments that are flooding in now and the support we get for telling you know this part of life that has always been hidden by mainstream media it's yeah it's really making this a very worthwhile job if I could just ask you guys to like and subscribe and click the little bell because I get a lot of messages from people Chris I didn't get you know I didn't know you did a podcast with so and so if you click the bell you will that's it I'm out of here thank you