 This week's episode is sponsored by Ryan at Change. If you are looking to get involved in e-commerce and bulk their successful online business, then check out my good friend Ryan, who I have been working with the last few years and attending many events and retreats all around the world, spending time with members who are making some serious money. I have been promoting Ryan for a while now because I believe in what he does and not only has he helped and supported me, but my own businesses, but I have seen first hand how he helps and supports his members, take their businesses to new levels and give them financial freedom. So if you are interested in getting into e-commerce and building successful online stores, then message Ryan on his Instagram at ryan.com to join his winning team. You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications bell so you are notified for when my next podcast goes live. The true story of a former serious organised crime agency detective who went undercover for 17 years but survived and came out of the other side dancing. Back in Maddox called working people by your big brother. It's on Amazon. I don't make much money ever to be fair. I wrote as a legacy document for my kids and people who didn't know because I lied to all my friends for 17 years about where I was and who I was. I made up stories about what I did that day and I never spoke about it and I have always been shy of talking about it and I am not a big headed guy. I have always played down who I really am. But I thought I've got the chance to see you and open the book a bit and open the story and then everyone who knows me because people will see this will say wow that's amazing. I know they are going to say that before we even get started because it's going to be a shock. Before we get into all the nitty-gritty though I always like to go back to the start with my guests. Get a bit of understanding about you, where you grew up and how it all began. So basically I don't have much recollection before 5 years old. Why is that? I don't know. I don't know because my memory won't go back any further. I don't know whether I cut it off. But not under 5 that I remember now. And what basically happened was my mum and dad, he was Catholic, she was Protestant and his family were really strict Catholic. And as far as I'm aware it's never been discussed. I think they eloped and got married. And he was a fit return at the Doxy Middlesbrough in the rough part of Middlesbrough in the northeast. And he got a job at Sarswood Power Station in Lason in Suffolk. And we all moved down there to Lason and it was idyllic. It was a brand new house. It was a short walk to the beach and dad worked at this nuclear power plant. But they had a lot of kids. By that time I was 5 and we had 4 kids. Which to me is ludicrous. When you haven't got a lot of money, having a lot of kids is just going to kill you. And us. So we had 4 kids. I went to school there when I was 5 years old. One of the two stories I really remember from my childhood was one day this lad called Porky Jones who was a school bully. He used to beat me at school but this time he ran home after me all the way to beat me at some point. And I got to the house, ran the doors, cried my eyes. I said Dad, Porky Jones is trying to kill me. He said come on, assemble, sort him out. So we marched back out the house, got to where Porky Jones was and dad goes right, sort him out son. Walked back and locked the door. And we had a massive fight on our garden lawn. And he beat me but the bullying stopped immediately and he wanted to be my friend. And I realised then that bullies don't want to be hit back. They want free hits. They're pushing themselves on a free hit. The last thing they want is a battle. And I gave them a battle and it changed my life completely as far as the fighting side of life is concerned. From that forward I thought I'm going to learn to fight no matter what. And then my mum, I went to the local news agency Mr Kemp's and I nicked 6 bars of caramac. And I took him home and I gave one to my sister. And Elizabeth, she grasped me up to my mum. My mum bagged in pigment by the ear and she slapped me up round the face every step of the way back to Mr Kemp's. She made me get down on my knees and apologise for thieving and give back the four caramac bars I'd left. And I thought, I'm never nicking another thing. I'm never going to be dishonest. I'm not a dishonest person anyway but that's really sealed the deal for me. And then mum and dad decided to go for another child, fifth child, like in six years and Tina was born but she died after three months. What we'd probably say would be a cop death now. And it blew the family apart, blew my mum and dad apart. They became argumentative, fighting and eventually the relationship with Tina at such a degree that we said we're going back to Middlesbrough to be near mum's parents in Middlesbrough. So we moved back and we moved into Grangetown which is literally one of the main shitholes of the northeast. It is not the jewel of the north, it's an absolute carzy. And they're knocking down houses to build slums there. And we moved in, five kids, four kids, so they wanted to die and they started having more kids. They had another three and think we have seven under ten years old. No money, dad like earning peanut money at the docks. And the local people who were in there, we had a southern accent, we weren't norms anymore. We got beaten senseless by everybody. They put me to the local school. We were so poor, I was the only kid in senior school in shorts. I had kicked in for that. And the other thing at the senior school, the civilian words they had, what they call it, they had toilets with bars above the doors. And you had to run, it was running the gauntlet, you had to run from one end and all the others would swing through and kick you in the face as you went through. I must have gone through there 30 times in the first year of that school getting kicked senseless by the other kids because of things that were wrong with me. That was no fault of my own, it was just poverty. And then my dad got a job in Saudi Arabia working for Amco Oil and his money went through the roof. And you think, this is going to be amazing. And I did, we all thought that, it's going to be great. And it was for a couple of months. But my dad was a bullshitter. And working with the guys in Bahrain, he told me he had no kids. He didn't want to meet his seven. And one of my younger sisters, she became a lynch, she became physically and mentally handicapped. Now there's two stories, one I've been known from birth which was that one of us swung her out of a pram and she hit the brick wall and she became mentally unwell and disabled. But recently in the last couple of years, my mum's sister has confided that mum took her, tried to abort her with a pill and that caused the brain damage. And I don't know which of those stories is true. But either way, she's now 59, but she's still alive, with a mental capacity of a three-year-old and spent virtually all of her entire life in a wheelchair. And I don't know where the truth is. That's a sad story. Because they had Lynn as number five. Tina was number five but she died. Then Lynn was number six. And she was handicapped. And then we had seven and eight effectively. I said to my mum and dad when I was older, what did you do that for? Why did you sentence us all to absolute poverty just to keep having children when there's no need? Three, four. I've only got two. Me and my wife, when I got married later, we said we can only afford two, we're having two then. And I've never understood why you'd have more unless you've got the money to give them a life, give them a good life. You bring kids into the world you can never give a good life to and I didn't understand it. And I never have. So he went to Bahrain, working for Ramco Oil. And then he stopped coming home. Because the guys who were out there didn't come home. They went to Malta. They had a six-week-on-six-week-off shift and they went to Malta and they just shagged prostitutes and got pissed. And he started doing the same. He stopped sending money home. So now we have seven kids, single parents, and mum going out to try and work to turn money at a bar. She started drinking. She became a chronic alcoholic. And my dad was a heavy drinker as well, all through our lives. And he did come back, he'd been in and out back as well over time, but not consistently enough to be of any influence on any of us. And me and my sister Elizabeth became the parents to the younger five. Because my mum and dad were incapable. They were pissed as far as all the time. My mum would drink like eight to 12 barley wines a day. And three would knock most adults out. And she used to pick fights with people. She was a really spiteful man. And my dad was really docile. So they'd go both when they were in the winter. They'd get pissed together. He'd fall asleep. She'd punch him in the face. That kind of thing, you know, or punch us. So we had an absolutely awful childhood. All the way through, all the time. For the 16 years I was a child, it was absolutely awful. No money, no clothes. Cross-dressing me with these clothes on all the time. No food. We used to eat. The principal diet was jam and bread. Or pork dripping or beef dripping on bread. We had one hot meal a week if we were lucky. We had no telling, no record player, no luxuries, no covers on our beds. We used to put coats on to go to bed at night. My dad would take his coat off when he went to work in the morning and leave me freezing on the bed. But there was no sheets, no blankets. It was absolutely awful beyond extreme. How does that dysfunctional family then play a massive part in your adult life from being bullied, from the disabled sister, the broken home, the alcoholic parents? How does that shape you as a person when you get older? Do you think it does a lot of damage or do you think it makes you appreciate life? It makes you appreciate life. I mean, and I'm going to quantify that by saying, I would say all of us, all the ones who were, like, apart from Linda was meant to have them couldn't walk if she wanted to. We've all become industrious, hardworking, honest people. All our lives, you know. My brother, my youngest brother, who was literally, who had the two younger ones, Gail and James, had that worst of it all. They had like, you know, because I joined the Navy at 16 and left them. They had the worst at all. And they still turned out really good people. And he's a multimillionaire now. You know, self-made millionaire. But you'd never think if you spoke to him. You wouldn't know he had a penny in his pocket. He's not flash. He's a real gent. And everybody, I know him, loves him. Yeah. It's like anything in life, no matter good or bad. Your life can go both ways. The same good or bad. I think there's a story of the alcoholic father and they had twins. One became the alcoholic just like his father. Another became a successful businessman who just didn't want to even touch drinks, see drink, be around people who drunk. But it's sad being in that sort of environment because when you understand the parents as well and how their past is and how they become alcoholics and the shit that they go through, it's hard. I don't blame them at all. I think, you know, any woman left alone with seven kids won them in a wheelchair. It took shit to wear this massive white sponge padded helmet. All the time because she threw fits and headbutted the wall. Or at least she was near, so she had to wear that. And again, going back to the cruelty of the North. I like Northern people. They are the salt of the earth people of the North, I think. They're much more friendly than the South. They're just really, really good people and they try the best for their families in difficult circumstances. But as an example of cruelty, my mum used to make me take Lynn out in the wheelchair for a walk to get some fresh air. So I'm walking in with the wheelchair that's up the road and then I see these two guys coming from the school. I mean, I'm in the senior school. And let's get that twat with a spacker. So they start chasing me. I've got the wheelchair pushing her and they're running after me. So I'm running like a fucking idiot. Like up the road like a loony. Absolutely petrified, crying. Crying my eyes out. And it catches, they beat the shit out of me, tipped her out of the wheelchair on top of me and run off. And I thought, how could you do that? What kind of mentality would make somebody do that? And that's when I think people are made wired differently, aren't they? Everybody's wired differently. I would never do that. I would never hurt a disabled person. I wonder if a normal person wasn't hurting me. But it's actually throw a disabled kid out of a wheelchair on top of the brubby of just beating up. I just don't get it. Yeah, that's some sick shit, that. Yeah, that's some next level. That's some deranged kids, that. Yeah. To even think that, but what if they've been through it to even be acting like that as well? I'm sorry. See, when you joined the Navy at 16, was that an easy decision just to get away or was it hard because you knew you were letting your younger siblings down? It was, well, it wasn't hard to join because I didn't intend to. What happened was, I was mixing with some of the criminals on the estate. Not doing anything wrong, not stealing bikes, we had motorbikes just to ride motorbikes around big motorbikes, no crash helmets, no insurance, no license all around the estate. And my mum thought that he's going to end up going to jail if I don't sort him out. So, she applied in my name for me to join the Navy. And I got a letter from the Royal Navy and said, oh, please come to Artlipal for a maths and English test to join the Navy. And I was like, what? My mum was like, well, you may as well go. You've got nothing else going for you. You're going to end up in trouble of ours. So I went, did the maths and English test and they had the interview and passed and then joined up in 1976. And it was a pull to get me away because I knew that my younger siblings were going to have an awful life, you know, literally. And to give me that again, my mum was cruelty. My younger sister Gail, when she was going through puberty, so she was living on about 11, 12, she stole something and mum found out. And mum stripped her off bollock naked, sat on the dining room table, put a sign around her head saying, don't feed or talk to me on my thief. And left her there for eight hours. And I thought, how can you do that to your kids? How can you be that cruel to your children? Discipline's completely frowned on though, which I'm not with. I'm with discipline. I think children need to know the rights and wrongs of the world. But that's just like a bridge way, way too far down the line. That's not a beat. My dad used to beat us all the time with a bat. They called it a smack bat. It was designed to smack you. They beat us with that. But my mum was immensely cruel. She was pissed. Unbelievably spiteful. Yeah. But then that makes you question what did happen to your sister back then as well. Yeah. Because if she's got seven kids, she clearly doesn't, she's not going to take anything for abortion because she's obviously went with seven. So whether she's been drunk, this is me just looking from it. You're saying it as a possibility that you're drunk and someone's crying and you're thinking fuck this and you know, and things get led out of hand. Like, what was your mum's upbringing? My mum had a good upbringing. My mum and dad's parents were strict but good. Dads were absolute arseholes, Catholics. And I'm not saying Catholics are arseholes. They were, they excommunicated. I never met them. I never met his family, any of them ever in my life. You know, they excommunicated when they married mum. Whereas with his mum's mum and dad, dad, this is a game which I will talk about before we start about the seismic shift in power of women and men nowadays. When I used to, my grandma, just to get food now and then because he never got fed at home. And I remember my grandad Jim coming in. He'd walk in from work. He worked at I-Shire, the petrochemical factory. He'd walk in. He'd sit down on his chair in front of the fire which was lit by my grandma. She'd come out the kitchen, undo his shoelaces, take his shoes off, put them to one side, put his slippers on his feet, light his pipe, put it in his mouth and say, I'll be back in a minute with the dinner, Jim. Can you imagine anybody doing that now? You know, to that level of obedience to the man. But yeah, they were strict but they were nice. Yeah, same stuff. And their mum had good sisters and brothers and they supported us as well. They knew we were having an awful time and although they didn't live anywhere near us, they used to drive and pick us up and take us out for days out and that kind of thing. But it was, childhood, I have no fun memories of childhood at all, none at all. So what was it like then from being bullied, like I say, the dysfunctional kind of family, full of chaos to then go into an aviary. Was it a total culture for you when you're thinking, was it more peaceful though? Or was it another form of bullying? What was it like when you weren't there? The services are a form of bullying and I actually feel that it's, I rather call it discipline when it's like that. When they're trying to get you to be something, to be clean, to wash your own clothes, to iron, to cook, to be self-sufficient, to polish your boots. I think for me, it was like, what, I like this. I like the fact that they want me to be fit. They want me to be tidy, because I always want to be tidy. In my school report when I left The William Worses, when I passed the exam at the grammar school, it said, Rob is a very bright individual, but he needs to take more care of his personal appearance. I thought, what kind of fucking teacher? I thought I wore the clothes I wore by choice. You know, it just doesn't happen, does it? I enjoyed discipline. I loved it. I took to like Dr. Walter. Did that happen? Is that because of the shit you went through? I cared the kekins, the beatings, and that became normal, but it was easier because, you know, it was helping you in a way. And also, with that kind of upbringing we had, I would say I can't be hurt. I can't be hurt emotionally. I can't be hurt physically, because I've been massively emotionally and physically hurt a lot. I'm not saying I wouldn't cry if something was sad, but I'm not frightened of anybody. I'm not frightened of anything in the world. If you're prepared to kill me, that's fine. I'm not worried about it. I'm not worried about dying. I've got no... I've got respect for my own life, but I don't think about my... I don't protect my life, do you know what I mean? I couldn't have done what I did for 17 years if I was worried about my life, because I could have died many, many times over that period. What did you do in anything then? I joined the Navy in 1976, and I originally went into Palaeus submarines up at Phas Lane. Yeah, it's up near Lott-Lawman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Up at Phas Lane. But I hated it. Why? Well, because the nuclear submarines, the Palaeus submarines, which are basically nuclear deterrent submarines, they leave Phas Lane, they sink, they disappear for three months, and when they come back up, they're at Phas Lane. And I joined the Navy to travel, but I went in there for money, because it was £13 a fortnight more if you went to the submarines. So I was on £11 a week. I thought £13 a fort is a lot of money. I'll go for that. But when I got it, I didn't like it. So I came back, retrained, and then went to normal ships as a radar operator. What's that like? You know, the things that spin on the top of the ships? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That control all the, can you tell you what, everything that's around you, aircraft, ships, everything. And in operations, when I worked in there, and I did nine years doing that in the Navy for the Royal Navy as a radar operator. And I got promoted a couple of times. There's some good stories about that, that is, we went on my first trip, I joined HMS Exeter up on the time being built, and we joined, I joined in 79, and the dockyard worker just came to the ship. Fishing rod, sleeping bag, no work. I was there for a year. They didn't do a stroke. And then they obviously, the government had put in the pressure on him to get the ship out. So they pulled all the stops out, did thousands of pounds of overtime and then got the ship ready. But they were then screaming about why have the time shipyards been demised? Why have they been shut down? The next contract from the Navy went to Hamburg after Exeter because you can't have people coming on board for a year at a time and doing nothing, doing no work. And it was union controlled. So nobody got sacked, nobody did nothing. And then after the Exeter, we went, first of all, we went to Portugal, a place called Porto. And the docks are always in the rough part of town. Any docks tend to be in the rough part of the city. And we had to cross the bridge to get to the main town for nights out. Every night, our lads were getting robbed at a knife point by thugs, Portuguese thugs. And then me and the other couple of lads, we said, right, we're not seeing enough. We're going to stop this tonight. So we called together 40 guys, watched the cult movie The Warriors. You see that one? Yeah. Watched The Warriors. And then we self, me and the several I called out, and we walked across the bridge where the robbers were all taking place, pretending to be pissed. We had 40 guys armed to the gills, hockey sticks, baseball bats, everything. Six people come along with a woman, attacked us with knives. We shouted to the boys. They came out. We absolutely chased them into the town and battered them to fucking death. Beat them all to sense, smashed the cafe window and smashed the 10 guys in there in the cafe. And then the big gang came about 100 strong. And I was going to start running now because it's starting to get a bit frightened. It was a proper full-on riot. They ran away. And there was about 20 of us left and there was 100 of them. And my mate goes, charge! We went running towards them like idiots. And they ran away. 100 people plus ran away. And then we heard gunshots and the police came. They started firing guns at us. So we ran back to the ship and they stormed the whole town, so they stormed the ship. And we had to put firehouses on them with 200 psi and keep them at bay. So that was that. See when you're doing the radar thing where you're under attack, how far can it spot? Oh, the air ones. 240 miles. So that's how far it goes out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably a long further now, yeah. So few were under attack, but how long does it take for a few were under attack? A plane could get 240 miles in what? Oh, yeah. Oh, without a doubt. 10 minutes, 10 minutes. Well, the only excuse, and I wasn't in, I didn't go to the Fortress War, but it was 82 when I was in at the time. But like I said, it was an absolutely frightening experience there for all the boys on the ships. You know, if they had a bit more bolt, they'd have done a lot more damage. But they didn't want to get, they couldn't come up high because the radar would get them and they couldn't come down too low because of the terrain. So a lot more people would have died. And I don't fancy ship's chances much in a war. Proper war. Yeah, stop. How fast do submarines and ships go? 30 knots. Yeah, that's nothing. Nothing, no, no. You can't run away for sure. How fast do some of those those fighter jets go as well? 700, 800 miles an hour? 2,000 miles, yeah. Do you have 1500 miles? Yeah, yeah. That's crazy, isn't it? And also the missiles. How fast does a missile go? I'm not sure because I might have been out there. But what they do is the missiles are launched from wherever they're launched. And then some of them they'd drop, like Super Tendal, they'd drop to the floor, the missile's exorcet. And then they'd run along the ground, you know, like a foot off the waves. You can't see them with the radar screen. Because some of these ships and airplanes they would fly up. They're not even registered in the radar. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, they made them. They designed them to be not, you know, not picked up by radar. Yeah, yeah. So fuck that. I'm glad you don't know. Well, I did think, because what I was in, in 82, you've ever heard a field gun? No. Right. There used to be a thing called the Royal Navy Field Gun Competition, which was at Earl's Court in front of the Royal Family. And it's basically running a gun in a limber box with teams and racing around a circuit, a man-made circuit. And in 82 I was running field gun for Portsmouth. And that's another real test of like mental strength and physical strength and fitness. And I run there. So when the fort was cracked off they kept the field gun going and I didn't go to war at all. Then I stayed with field gun. So how did the corpus come about? What, what was the plans? Basically what happened was when I was the helicopter controller for HMS Exeter, the pilot who had saved his life a couple of times when things had gone a bit hairy because of radar skills. So what happened? Well, it was gone, it was suddenly like covered in a complete fog. He couldn't see the ship. So I had to bring him back using the radar screen. And there was a tiny, tiny blip the size of a, you know, cocoa pop on the screen. And I'm bringing him back to the ship 10 miles away. I got him back on board with the procedures that were, were trained. How do you navigate that then? So how does, how does, what's the navigation skills then for you to gate that onto the ship? If he can't see, what does he go by? He goes by what you're telling him. Everything you tell him to do, he does. Like to the end direction. Yeah. So he'll go, I'll go drop 200, come left, come right, you know, all the way until he eventually he gets to the point where he's about a foot from the ship and you can see it. And then he lands. And so I saved him a couple of times there. How dangerous are helicopters? Because you always see them crash. Like never should be flying. They're agricultural flying machines. That's how they've been described by the military. And, but he said to me, the pilot, he said, look, he said, because you've been so good and done some things that have helped me out a lot, he said, I'm going to take him and let you have a flyer, the Lynx helicopter in the training seat. So I said, all right. And so I'll go into the training seat. He let me fly for 15 minutes. He says, Rob, he says, you are a natural pilot. He said, you've got all the function skills to fly. It's something to recommend you for pilot training. And he did. And it would have been at the time when the just jump jet Harriers were coming out. He said, if you passed the flying course, he said, you will be a jump jet Harrier pilot. I would have been made for life then. But being a wanker at school, barking about fighting, not paying attention, not making everybody laugh because I was the class comedian everywhere I've been. I didn't take any exams. I didn't pass any exams. So he sent the report off the avenue to get me to fly helicopters and jump jets. And about three months later he came back. Sorry. Can't come into the dark with Naval Training College without 5-0 levels. Five GCSEs. Sorry. Not good enough. And now I fought then. I was capable of getting the GCSE, but I didn't care about them. And I picked myself for years after that. I've got to say, because I could have been flying planes now. You know what I mean? Stay there going under cover with gangsters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have it? I had it. I had it. I said, you're welcome. The flying planes would have been less dangerous. Yeah. So I... So anyway, you said you're an unprecedented, you can't come to dark with no levels. So the pilot goes, I'm not having that. He dug his heels and then he sent me to HMS Nelson where they had an elevator. And I started doing O-level courses a week in a month to O-level. And I passed the first one in a week, English. So I thought, right, I'm doing it. I'm doing physics, maths and tours, but I couldn't get physics. And while I was there doing the education center stuff, the police turned up and did a recruitment drive. And I went to the seminar and I went, that sounds a bit fun. And that's how I'm leaving to join the police, because I couldn't get the physics. And I gave it two goes and I applied to join the police. What age did you join them? 25. Do you regret that decision? Not at all. Do I regret not... My biggest regret is not passing the O-levels at school. If I could say anything to anybody going forward, get in there and get them exam results because sometimes that's all that counts. You know, particularly with skills like that, with flying and jobs that involve that kind of stuff. They want the O-levels. They want the qualifications up front. And I could have probably got up but I didn't care enough. Because it's easier to get into the police if you've got Malatru Bank going. It was then. I'm not sure if it is now. When I joined the police I had no O-levels. I had one English. And I applied for Hampshire and the Met. And the Met said, yes. The Hampshire said, yes, you've been in a year. And the Met said, yes, you're coming now. So I said, right, I'll join. So I joined the Met in July 84. What was that like? I spent a lot of time in the train. More and more I've spent a lot of fun because I haven't got a negative side to me at all. I always look at the positive and the even in the worst situations. And I remember I joined the police and I was 25, ex-military and there was all these young lads around us and girls and that who literally were wet behind the ears. And I was kind of became the father figure to the to the class that I was in. And went through the train to school 20 weeks. A couple of good stories and let people read them in the book because they're funny. Tell us one. Well, I'll tell you what it was. There's two tower blocks in Hinden, one for women and one for men. And I'm in the bar. We had a bar on the basement floor and men and women were banned from being in the other blocks. It was a complete taboo. It was a sack of the fence. So I'm sitting at the bar and one of the girls passing me a piece of paper there and I picked it up and she said, I want to fuck you. Be at my room, 311, in the girls block in five minutes. So I was like, Oh, OK. So I fold the paper and put me back in. I said, I'm really tired I've got to go to bed. I goes back to the men's block and gets in the lift and two squaddies get in the lift with me. Two ex-army guys. I said, I can't go down. I've got to go up. So I'd go with them until they get out and then I get out at myself and run back down the stairs. But what they did was one of them had a shit in the lift. I don't know what I said. Squaddie's idea of humor to have a drop of turd in the lift. Sick folks. But I didn't know that. So I run into the block go up to her get to her room not the door on my chest my chest is fucking popping out my chest and I opened it and she's got suspenders, stockings and a basket on and we fuck like rabbits for a couple of hours and then we fall and it's drunk and sleep. I wake up at 10 to 8 for an eight o'clock parade. Oh, Jesus Christ. I run down back downstairs down to the basement through the tunnels that lead underneath the both the blocks bump into the cleaner and she faints because she gets such a shot with me running around the corner and she faints on the floor and I keep running I don't stop I run up and get changed and I get to the parade with about a minute of spare. They do all the parade and they're like all marching and then the other side goes he said right he said there's been something happened last night that's gotta be sorted out. He said and I'm thinking oh it's me it's me I've fucking done it I've not fucked myself somebody had a shit in the lift. I knew exactly what I've never said a word he says that person is we've said we've taken the turd we're going to friends that examine it and that man will be found in charge he'll all be given a DNA sample or a sample for blood or something and so it was like ooh and I thought fuck it's not me and he goes and there's another thing somebody made the cleaner faint when they ran past them from the women's block and then he starts marching the other instructor starts marching the cleaner over and says gentlemen off caps so we'll take our hats off so they can see our heads and she does a full parade she says a full march down the parade trying to identify the person who made her faint but she doesn't and the drill sergeant is absolutely going off on one and he goes to me so meet me in my office in five minutes now I want to talk to you how can you know it's me but I get in there and he goes right to me he says I want the name of the person who's shit in the lift and the phantom fucker by the end of the week because they're getting sacked he said do your best I said yes sir I know got clean up anyway the guy a guy confessed to shit in the lift why he confessed because he thought he'd be identified by the term he got sacked but I never confessed so I lived on what was the training like really hard really hard because you have to cram a lot in it's 20 weeks and it's all law legislation you have to pass an exam every week if you don't pass if you don't pass one you get a bone you don't pass two you're gone you get kicked out so it's really hard where did you go when you passed then what sort of one's worth South London yeah just up the road here so straight on there it depended do you go the beat at the start walking around the streets yeah you have to do two years on the beat that's mandatory and then you learn your trade basically and again that's another it's another shop because what you don't realize when you're a civilian and by that I mean a non-civilian you don't realize how much bad goes on everywhere you know people do things which you like turn your stomach you know you're going to houses and it's just how can they be living here you know shit all over the floor all over the walls you'd be used to that being fucking doing the trade of course even though it was just that tears when people would get used to it it was shitting everywhere but it's a culture shock the police because you deal with the bad in most people most of the time you very rarely deal with the good in anybody you're always dealing with the the problem side of society and there's very little there's very little plus points to be in a policeman because nobody really wants you there truthfully you know people say we police by consent but as soon as that blue light goes on behind you you're not my friend but as soon as when I was raised in Glasgow I was always raised to hate the police to hate them I don't ever tell them nothing I hate them they're pigs they're bastards and it's only to maybe 5-10 years since I've been doing this job when I actually speak to people and you speak to police officers you realize how strong they are to do the job that they do and the things that they see dead kids dead bodies road accidents abuse rapes like that child abuse that that's some dark stuff that not a lot of people would do so I've got nothing but respect for anybody who joins the police force listen there's corruption everywhere we know it good and bad and every fucking job in the world but every police officer I've had on every undercover copperman I've got nothing but respect because what they go through in a daily basis and what they see is beyond people's worst nightmare because it's some dark stuff and like you say it's not a positive job it's a job of hate it's a job of destruction and pain and misery it's a negative job but everything you see is negative every court case every bad man every bad woman every bad child and it's sad as well because always say this but just because you've done bad things it doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad person certain circumstances certain things that you've been raised are seen in your own life that makes you do things that not necessarily you want to do but you're just programmed to then think it's normal and it's sad but so when you started on the beat what was the worst thing you've seen at the start? the start in the first two years the worst thing I've seen was there's a place called Manor Fields in Putney Hill it's a big rich person's block of flats was back in the day and we were talking 1984 85 now and I used to live above Putney Play Station in the men's single accommodation because I had a house in ports with a single accommodation down in living there and I was awoken in the morning by what would sound like the biggest bomb in the world going off literally it shook the building where I was sitting in bed and we got called out and because I was older than everyone the guys said Rob, you're in charge of property and bodies which means I was out of the response for a recovering any property and blogging it and bagging it and dealing with any corpses I'd never seen the corpse before in my life and this gas explosion that Putney Manufils had pulled a free story high block down into the basement every flat every flat was in the basement there was nothing that was leveled but the explosions have been so big and in one of the rooms there was an elderly couple who had been decapitated there both of them in bed by steel girders and you could see into their heads it was just absolute carnage and I it's hard not to I think the thing that made me survive was I've learnt over time to compartmentalise my life so although I was there dealing with absolute carnage when I went I just went gone didn't think about it anymore but that was the worst thing and the clapping train question was in the same at the same time I didn't get involved in that deliberately not when I said volunteers they didn't put my hand up because I don't want to be seen I don't want to see carnage you know I don't like it but your whole life had been carnage and I know you say you shut off your feelings and emotions where like you say it's a little switch switch off but it's still there oh for sure it's still there now that we know the science behind it and how the brain functions and operates the brain is so powerful we still don't actually know what its purpose is 100% we still don't realise how powerful it can be if you actually tap into it but we know it stores everything no matter how smart ass you think you can be we're blocking it out I don't think about that anymore it's still there well I'll give you an example James it was because that's very very true I was I was at the tube station going to court at Suffolk and I was waiting for the train and I thought there's a woman in front of me I was standing at the back because all the pickpockets get the people at the front if you stand there with your back to the wall you can't be pickpocketed and that's how it works and also when I was a mental patient pushed the woman in the train when it came in in the station because she was the next to the platform pushed and killed her at the institution I was at the back and there's a woman at the front of the fur coat and I thought she must be roasted it's a summer's day she's got a fur coat on full thick fur coat and it's the train I'm like that and just felt myself kept being drawn back there like that and then when the train got close she dived in front of it chopped herself in half at the torso and took her head off at the other side so she was in three bits fucking hell because I was literally staring at her staring at her when it happened and the train stopped and a nurse went and looked after the drive an hour and up to them the platform cleared within a millisecond of everybody was screaming and just running I went towards the train everyone else runs the other way and I ran up to the driver and he said yeah I'm fine if I'm shaking and you could see it was as white as a ghost and the nurse stayed with him and I waited at the bottom of the steps for the ambulance and the fire brigade to arrive and the ambulance man comes running down and he says I'll get into the train and render first aid I said mate I said unless you can blow from that head there to that body down there it ain't going to work I said don't go down on the track because it's not safe so he didn't but the reason I'm mentioning that story is because for 20 years that haunted me you know literally when I was when I'm driving my car on a long journey on the motorway and you sort of you've got your hand like that and the other wheel on the coffee you're slipping to water by it don't you and whenever that happened to me she jumps in front of my car literally but for 20 years she jumped in front of my car I fucking braked hard on one occasion and on the other I did a 360 spin at 70 miles an hour because of that because she jumped in front of my car so see what was it like getting your first arrest when you were on the beat I was a prolific thief-taker because of my age I think I took to policing like a doctor but I was a very fair man and I'll give you an example of that I never nicked any bit of drink drive because drink drive it's a sin to drink drive I get that but all the cops did it back then and all of them to a man they don't do it now because it's a sack of the fence and you know there are people there all nicky but everybody used to drink drive and I used to think myself if you nicked some bit of drink drive you destroyed his life because if he's working for a living you can't get there anymore his family is going to suffer his kids are going to suffer so I used to say to people on the drink drive look mate you obviously had a good skin form I can see that I'm not going to breathalyze you but if you put your keys down that roadside drain that's a done deal you can't drive from killing anybody at my behest I'm going to let you go and do that and you've learnt a lesson you'll have to buy a new set of keys 70 quid not one single person ever took the take me to the police station option and I used to deal with everybody like that I used to deal with everybody the way I wanted them to deal with me if the roles were reversed be decent I've never thumped anybody in the police I never felt the need I used to say to them let an enemy mate calm yourself down we can sort this out but we've got to do it in a nice way we can't do it if you scream at me I'm not screaming at you and that makes a massive impact on the way I was dealt with by the public the way I dealt with them and I think a lot of guys now cause their own demise to the police because they go straight in hard and once you've gone in hard you can't pull down it's mad because every cop I've interviewed they do struggle with mental health and one of the guys says a lot of coppers drink while on the job because of the shit they see do you think there's enough things in place for the police to then speak about your feelings and emotions not at all it's like the military a lot of the homeless guys on the street are ex-veterans yeah, yeah I did try and help them as people when I was in London in my area I said come on mate let's get you help let's get you sorted everybody's got a story aren't they I've never treated anybody like they're not a human and a lot of the black people that black culture I would say very anti-police I mean the culture in the main is very anti-police but it's not you can change that if you deal with them like they're decent people and I used to talk to them the same as I talk to you it's just another man and I think the whole racism it's been stirred up and back in the 70s when I was a nipper my sister ran away with a black guy and got married in London you know it was unheard of back then in the north there wasn't many black people up there but she broke them old and a black guy married them and had three kids fair play to her but back then racism, yeah now I'm not so sure I think people are playing it now to make things worse not better yeah it was heavy but back in the day I think oh it was when I was a nipper it was really really bad but now I think people don't like you now whatever you are whatever your sexuality whatever your colour creed if they don't like you now it's because you're probably a bit fat yeah I think it still goes on like there's racism in every colour every culture yeah there is yeah but when I walk along the streets I'm not seeing people fighting I'm not seeing people calling each other names that's not a lot of people are silent racist as well a lot of people pretend that they're not but there still are like but you don't when you walk the streets London is a bit London's probably the only city where it is a bit you don't feel 100% safe here there's an energy about it sometimes and it feels as if it can kick off sometimes I've got that feeling when I was in the Belfast this way I don't know if it's because of the troubles back in the day but listen I love the Londoners I love the people at Belfast they're amazing they're friendly they're fucking crazy but there's always that everything I go with is the vibe from where I am and there's always a maybe not so much the last few months but the last year or two when I was in London it always felt a bit uneasy yeah I don't know what that is I'm awfully tensioned here yeah why do you think that is I don't know I mean people say it's poverty in that but if that was the case I've got a right to be tense do you know what I mean you couldn't have had a worse life than me from 0 to 16 I don't know I think generally society is changing and not in a good way I think the way the kids are being brought up is not good I think this technology like taking kids' lives away you know I see people at three two four get home on the iPad four or five hours the interaction skills that you need as humans are disappearing I think definitely so you're on the beat for two years what was the steps do you go straight under cover after the two years are there other places you have to you have to be recommended for under cover you can't just apply somebody has to say I think you'd be good so what I went from ones of to Chiswick did a spell at Chiswick and the boss there he recommended for two posts one was to go under cover and the other one was to the flying squad at Barnes so I applied for both those jobs and got them got both the flying squad the flying squad the flying squad yeah the flying squad they've got an awful reputation from the 70s of being corrupt and fitting people up and all that kind of stuff and I can't say whether that was true or false because they were just shooting the Roppels weren't they they could shoot on see they had because I've seen the documentaries about the porn squad and I've seen them stories and I think myself how the fuck did they survive in the police but they did but when I joined in 84 I would say the flying squad was a group of very professional very decent guys so what is the flying squad for people who don't know the flying squad is the armed robbery squad which are the Sweeney as the villains call it it's a group of guys who deal solely with robberies on banks building societies jewellery and any major thefts a large amount of money or gold and that kind of stuff they deal with it that's what the flying squad do, that's their remit and there are armed robberies every day in London they're so frequent they don't even make the news whereas where I live if it was an armed robber it would be mayhem it would be in every paper but in London they don't make the news and the armed robber used to be the tough guys crime it was the top I used to admire the armed robbers because they were the top flight of the criminal world but now they're not they're just people who've got a gun because getting guns is easy you can buy a gun in London sawn off for 250 handgun for 400 800 brand new bullets you know the robber now he's not the same he's not the skilled money used to be he's not and there'd be four as well which I think is absolutely true they had an unwritten code not to shoot anybody between themselves you know but now they do shoot people people get shot now and robberies guards get shot even if they've given them money up so I think that's the society mental change it's alright to shoot people it's alright to kill people when you're doing your bit of work yeah it's just like you say there's no morals you listen to all the gangsters back in the day there was a sort of level of respect even looked respectable the way they dressed the dress sharp the suits, the ties unless you don't agree with what they do of course not at the cause of destruction and pain but there's a level of respect that you can give them no women or kids get hurt like you say people aren't getting shot they're not taking hostages and killing them now it's ruthless now it's a free-for-all I don't know if it's from the younger school where they're dressed in tracksuits and young girls are getting killed at fucking 12 and 14 and it just seems more ruthless now I don't know if that's because there's not as many gangsters they used to be where there was a level of respect and they had their man are under control and controlled it a bit but obviously this in the fear setting drugs and causing destruction as well it's a hard one but do you see the big change from the 80s to now? oh 100% 100% well I say the main things I've noticed is the crime is a lot more ruthless and brutal and the police are a lot less effective nobody respects them any more nobody cares nobody cares about the police and the police don't care either to be fair and I do get that a bit because in the police you can walk at the police station at 8 o'clock and walk back in at 4 o'clock and have done nothing all day and nobody cares you know what I mean not stopped anybody not done anything not even answered the radio once nobody says anything I think if they sent to the police tomorrow going forward I want a documented account of your day every day 75% have to leave because they do nothing so the document of the day it's like I thought you had to get certain targets and get certain requests no no no don't get me wrong it's a hard when you start saying we're going to target people to get a rest then you're going to say people are going to say I haven't got my rest off you could say that you could argue that I'm not saying it would happen nowadays back in the day yes nowadays in the 2020s like everything has changed but I would say public sector workers 75% do nothing 25% do everything when I was a police officer on my relief as a uniform cop I arrested more people for criminal offences than the rest of my relief of 15 people put together in a year how can that be well I know it is because people don't and again it's not my way but why would you go out and bust your bollocks trying to get things done when you don't get the support of the court you don't get the support of the system and you don't get any more money and you're likely to get complaints and end up losing your job why would you do it they seem more sensible than we're doing for a call it is more sensible doing nothing because you're safe then you're in a safe environment and you've got your 30,000 a year for your entire time you're there and you're never going to lose your job because you've never done that thing wrong because you're getting used anyway yeah of course getting used well for sure whether it's like people in the military you're getting used whether you live or die they don't care when you're out it's just the revolving door is someone else's drip back in yeah same as the drug dealers and the criminals somebody family member top boy gets to account there's somebody straight in they replace that yeah it's just a revolving system that we're in it's like a sausage factory yeah meeting one end sausage whole life so how long are we on the flying squad for five years it's a five-year post you have to move every five years so five years maximum yes what sort of jobs are we on loads loads of armed robberies loads of like career criminals I was on the surveillance team for a while and they're following them until they come to do that robberies on the security like the bank then we'd attack them with the guns and overpower them and that would be that they'd go down they'd get off a coat they nearly all got off a coat what's that feeling like from military kingdom on the radar sitting in your ass to then flying squad you're then holding a shooter you're then sitting behind robbers who are tooled up as well shot guns whatever they're using what was it like your first job to go what's in the drilling rush on the flying squad when you're following people rob a security van and you're going to hit them afterwards as soon as they've done it it's a massive adrenaline rush it's like for them as well I think it's a massive adrenaline rush and then a complete flop to the floor because they've suddenly they think 15, 20 seconds we're going to be millionaires and we're behind thinking 15, 20 seconds you're all going to jail if you get snipers on the roof as well if it's necessary when do you hit them so somebody's got to rob the bank when do you hit them do you hit them when they're going to the bank go to the bank outside the bank walking in the bank walking out the bank what sort of evidence have you got to get because if you're going to hit them before they go to the bank they can say well we weren't going to the fucking bank they may get done for their gun but it's not the full conviction that you want so how does it plan the best way which I would if I had been in charge of an operation would say well let it run let it run like we're not here because it would happen if we weren't here anyway if we weren't particularly behind them at this time it would happen but it's a ball as a steel job as a person in charge because if they shoot one of the guards if they shoot one of the tellers in the bank there's going to be a world of pain coming because you let it happen but if you don't let it happen and this is why I said about the acquittals are so high if you're bowling while they're outside the bank just about to do the work and I'll give you an example we had three guys they were being found security delivery at Acton three good armed robbers seasoned armed robbers and the boss didn't want to hit the van when it came so soon as the van came we called a strike and we hit them because they were in the van behind where the van was going to park they were going to come out with the balaclavas on everything and hit the van we hit them just as they start to open their door of their van they get the call oh no we weren't in Rob's security van we've had a guy called Johnny Wilson he's been robbing the pensions of their pension books we were going to frighten the shit out of him that's what we were going to do we weren't going to rob the van the charge was a bit narrow we weren't going to do that we got off smart you can only get charge work inspirations if they've caught up with the planning of it and the details but I think nowadays with technology and phones I think there's so much information that people can get quite easily it's definitely the catchment the tools there that catch people now when I was backing up Ben and Ben it was infancy when I was in the police we used to say to them don't want to get some surveillance photos just go to the Facebook page yeah go to Instagram but Instagram now go to Instagram you'll say let's tell you where they're going tonight or where they're going to be they've already accepted the invite you know so there's ways there's detective ways of doing it now but yeah the system is the legal system is fucked because it's not designed to convict anybody it's designed to acquit did you ever shoot anybody in a flying squad? no did you ever get shot at? yeah what was that feeling? it's fear in fact I'm going to clarify that a bit for you James it's absolute fear to be there to do the job you know what I mean it's not there isn't a policeman in the country I don't believe who actually physically wants to kill anybody it's just not in our make-up it's not in our psyche to kill people and it takes a special kind of person to kill somebody and not have an impact on their emotional well-being it does it's not the norm and I I'll give you an example we were outside a bank in Tooting and the first three guys nearest to the armed robber when the strike went in they fired two of them completely and one of them in the leg and they were this far apart because it's not natural to go at it it's not a natural feeling even the military back in the day they used to when they had the muskets and that they've done surveys the soldiers couldn't kill when they recovered their weapons from the battlefield they had like eight bullets eight bits of warring eight bits of gunpowder in it they hadn't pulled the trigger even though the boss had said standing fire they hadn't done it it's not an easy thing it's a frightening, horrible thing to kill somebody I think serial killers and killers they've got it because a lot of the killings in prison as well a lot of people have done it on high on alcohol and drugs because I spoke to an SES soldier and he says over 90% of people hold a gun miss yes because it's the shaking all over the place to be ruthless and cold-hearted and cold-blooded to gun in that frame of mind there's something I miss like you say with your psyche with your feelings your emotions to be that stone cold killer and I've interviewed snipers but you can see the damage that they've got in their mind because it's not a humane thing you shouldn't be seeing destruction of other human beings that's why a lot of people come back from military the wars their heads are gone because they screams they shout their bodies you've seen that girl in the train it's not normal well the army and the police changed their targets we used to shoot at a target with nothing on it but they changed them so when they turned you'd see a man it would be a photograph of a man obviously it would be a man or a woman or something and you would shoot because even the army thought their own men aren't shooting to it it's it even though they're trained and they've done all the courses when a real person stood in front with real eyes and looking back can't do it see if you have intelligence for to catch these people before they get into the bank is that through snitches or is it through your own intelligence and certain things over the years all sorts you know you do get informants talking about armed robbery you do get just people sadly or gladly whichever you look at a lot of criminals brag about what they're doing and it gets to the wrong ears and they say oh so so he's doing a bit of robbery he's had it off well you know if he's doing a robbery and he's had it off so he's got to follow him who's the most who's the biggest bank robber out there that you've you've seen and your time the biggest bank robber I wasn't do you remember the Easterbrooks no they got shot at the Abattoir I wasn't on that job but I was in the job at the time but the two guys who I respect because they're completely professional robbery and now if I think if you're going to be a if you're going to earn money from arm robbery live in a nice house live well if you're going to take the level of risk that's going to get you 30 years live well don't live in the council house with no money you're no other pot to piss in what's the point you're putting yourself off of 20 years jail and all you're getting out of is peanuts go big or go home basically how much were they making back then how much was the the banks and stuff half in because if it was cash back then I'd imagine it was more no more than when it was no but the most box house is 15K yeah and that's what you're going to get if you hit the guard on the pavement with the box the most unit is 15K but I've seen people get away with free free grand in coin and go to prison for 20 years imagine getting free grand in coin yeah one team in East London they nicked a security van the whole van they got 3 million in coin absolutely useless unless you're going around with 50 pound bags of pound coins when you go for dinner we miss this so they get 3 million pound coins yeah how heavy was that van tonnage we're talking tonnage yeah but they got caught because they kept going back to get the pound coins same as a kid in Glasgow he robbed the bookies for that 120 quid get 11 years do you know what I mean like people it's not smart I talked about me in the book there's a guy called David Ewing he was a career armed robber really hard man had a fierce reputation in jail never mind on the outside he robbed a post office in Hammersmith bridge road for 300 quid he came out the old bill were passing an armed old bill were passing by chance and they shot him dead 300 quid no raise a smaft that's a good friend of mine he get out of prison for a robbery and went straight out of prison just went in and done a bank that day got a McDonald's bag put it over his head and then robbed it see far things that robberies in the 70s and 80s see because they're all done now could they still get done with them now even though it was like 40-50 years ago I don't know the Yanks have got statute of limitations haven't they where you've got a certain amount of time to charge them with the crime after the event I don't know about England I've never really given that any thought I don't know so you says you are undercover and flying squad at the same time how could you do both well because undercover work you can dip in and out of it because you don't have to be there all the time so one of my first jobs undercover was to buy three killers of heroin from East London gangsters and I was on the flying squad at the time and but Ben mind I'd done two years in uniform at Wandsworth so the guy to meet the guys and the guy comes to meet me and I had a long hair in the ponytail then and he goes this is a turkey show because I knew as soon as I saw you you were a drug dealer I thought why I know Fox I've got a ponytail but so anyway I got him to we started talking about the three killers and all he tells you was that the guys were from East London but we get in the car where's he drive to Garrett Lane Wandsworth to the spotted dog pub which I'd raided him not less than a year earlier for drugs I'm sitting in the car fuck me this is going to get naughty I can't get out of the car but anyway ran in brought the next guy back in the food chain who's offering up the heroin and he got in the car with us and I recognized him from the pub but he didn't recognize me and I was sat there I'm telling you I had a bead of sweat running down my back and when I got out of the car the seat was wet how was that feeling for going undercover did you feel you could create a new character for yourself and be something different especially the upbringing that you had what it felt new, it felt fresh and you didn't have to be that scared bullied little boy that you were does that come into play yeah but I mean I would say definitely it helped me to you know my persona is my council house background I've seen a few of your podcasts being in a council house having this shit upbringing makes you into a strong person or rather makes you a breaksuit one of the two you know what I mean or you go off the rails my best mates at home who was a friend of mine all from my childhood he died of heroin overdose and everyone got life from a break seeing you go undercover why don't they take you out of your butter or the air that you wear just so it's more clean cut where you've got a fresh image of being around where you can take the risk and get took to a pub that you've actually raided like that's a massive risk it is it is it just works that way and it never caused me any grief at all bent cops caused me grief like saying I know him he's a cop when I was working but it never caused me any grief at all but it was a it's always a worry bent corpus was that people on the pay oh yeah is there a lot of corrupt corpus I wouldn't say there's a lot I was undercover for 17 years and I've found two so that's not really a lot I think I'd have found more if they'd have been about but to me if they said to me right Rob we're looking for somebody to execute bent cops I'd sign up oh well honestly because one of the guys who dubbed me in on a job if they'd have been any different kind of people than the ones that they were they were decent gangsters they just took me to one side and taught me so that bent cop for 50 quid on a quid could have seen the end of my life how do you end up going undercover for 17 years without your cover being blown was it ever close only when somebody else said like two jobs I did which is the ones I'm talking about and in the book where a bent cop drove past the wine bar where I was with the villains where it was that side he said I know him his name is this his real name so that job killed that killed that job and another job I went to Vegas to infiltrate some people from the UK and a guy back in England said there's two undercover cops trying to catch you beware so how do you then so when you get a target so do you get paperwork to say okay this family's doing gear they're shifting because the coppers know everything I think everybody knows now they've got a rough idea of what people's doing what they're moving how much money they have especially with the technology bugs and the surveillance that everybody's got they know everything especially with informants but back then in the nineties how would that work how would that job work do you get sheets of paper photos to say okay target this family how does it start well I was probably the infiltrator for the firm really because I can walk into a place cold if you said to me right Johnny Riggs the best armed robber in the world drinks in this pub I could walk him I could be his mate within a week I was really good at that and that was really my forte so I was the most people need something to push him in and informant to push him in I used to go myself befriending people just go in the pub sit down have a cup of tea have a beer and start talking and that was definitely my forte I could talk to anybody anywhere anytime and it didn't matter how hard they were or who they were if they were if they were in there that we'd be friends there's alcohol make the job easier because people loosen up a bit and the kind of relaxed and it feels if you've got something in common in a pub no I would say the thing that makes it easier is making people laugh for me I was a comedian I was funny being the class clown king that class clown mentality burning your life set you up for an undercover job yeah without a doubt and nothing as well which people don't like to admit but I liked all the people I liked the villains there were some of them I'm telling you I liked them more than my personal friends I did I felt like Judas when I pulled the plug on them because I thought me and you outside of this world we could be proper mates we'd be like a team you know how is that because I think Donnie Brasco he befriended the guy and I think they were pals and I think he did feel a bit gutted that he had to pull the plug on it what's the longest job you've worked on where you've grew up on with someone two years that's a long time yeah how does that make you feel when you know do you know it made me feel the worst well two things made me feel bad the week before we pulled the plug on the job the guy says come and make me a drink we know we gotta talk and I go yeah what is he goes look he says you know I love you like a brother he says I want you to be godparent to my son I was like ah that'd be lovely but I thought no I knew I couldn't do it but it really hurt that he'd like me that much that he wanted to be a godparent to his son and then at the end of that job we got like commendations from Chief Constable's and that saying oh well done great job you know you done me a lot of good work there and then his wife rang in and she said oh I could just say I really like you and we would have been friends my husband wasn't a crook oh that's very nice when you go undercover for two years like what sort of how big an operation is that and why is it took so long to gather so much information well that particular job was in Essex and there was a massive problem with drugs and coke and they said we need something to go and deal with this and that what basically happens is the team we were running the job they might be doing it on an overt basis they might be gathering intelligence now and they'd request to deploy an undercover officer and then the undercover control centre would say well who do you want and you know what kind of person do you want and then they say well somebody can do this this this and this and I'd say they'd say well that's Rob that's Rob Street so on that one it was moving to a Councillor State get myself a flat live there work the estate basically basically be a resident and then start going to places where the drugs and guns were really prevalent and that's what I did so I started that and sort of 12 months in I didn't eat it out of my hand all of them were you buying geed and guns off them yeah yeah sniper rifles shotguns handguns cocaine large amounts of cocaine not for me but for everyone so you'd say Rob that's why your head is fucked to me it's sitting on an Essex sniffing your brains out shooting fucking bullets through the ceiling no wonder you love the job so much on that particular job right this guy goes he says come and meet me at the pub we've got some brilliant stand guns one of my mates who's another one was already there at the pub so I walk in and the pub's chocker were people and they're playing pool and they were like over here quick so I'll come in he goes right we've tested these on us we need to test them on you now so we started zapping each other with these stand guns in the pub and so one of them was so powerful it actually knocked me off my feet and the people in the pub were like these guys are nuts and that's how it was it was fun and another time the same guy and I loved the pieces John's name was he says I've got a gun for you I said alright he goes come down Tilby Docks so I drive down Tilby Docks to see him we go in and he says go in the container we can't let it be seen here so I go in the container in the container in the pitch black like that with the door shut next to me he opens the door and he goes BOOM let's off in the container fucking hell and I went what the fuck was that he goes nice isn't it nice stand I was like I could tell you now put me pants in nearly did and anyway I said when he opens the door the light comes on and he's fired a piece of marine ply down the other end and it had in it it had in the shot it wasn't a shotgun cartridge it was a shotgun cartridge with a ball bearing in it a full-sized ball bearing and it ricocheted around the container before it stopped I thought he could have killed both of us stupid bastard see what sort of like cloven did you change your hairstyle did you get rid of the ponytail did you grow a beard like did you change different characters I just changed names names and accents yeah and skills because I was a boat captain as well what about with the name calling and somebody did you ever get somebody to call your name and you just blank them and you forget who your name was I mean this is on the Vegas trip but we were infiltrating the gang of criminals who were important puff by Laurie from one part of the country and now I'm in Vegas go to watch a football match on the big screen walk out the door with me mate and this guy goes ow that's my name because I use a different name on every job never use the same name twice and I'll look around and he was the leader of another criminal gang there he goes what are you doing here so I come to watch the boxing it was the Lennie exclusive and the Haldiville fight he says come on me and the boys are going down the stratosphere to ride the hotel rather it's called the roller coaster on the roof and then we're going to go to the chicken ranch and fuck some whores he says you'll come in I said yeah I am as well so I go with me mate who's like that not very happy because he's not that confident we can see him off and we get in the taxi there's me my mate Paul the gang leader and he's underling in the front and another taxi with another four of them in it anyway the guy at the front is trying to get Paul's attention and he calls him a cunt Paul grabs him by the air from the back to into the back of the taxi and bites half his nose off like that spits in the foot well and throws him back in the front seat back in blood pissing everywhere he says get out the fucking car sends him out and then we still drive to the stratosphere to go on the roof and my mate is as wide as it goes he's going to be and we go up to the roof and most of them even I was thinking I don't really want to go on the roof of the stratosphere hotel but the guy's just bitten his mate's nose off but we went up there they got the top the guy at the top goes oh sorry guys it's too windy the ride's shut for now we're going to have a drink at the bar and come back and I said oh we can't wait Paul we've got to go he's giving me a kiss and a hug goes off me and my mate get back in the lift when we got back in the lift he was shaking like a shit in doggy walls have you got a when do you wear a wire or is that just movie stuff and I always have to every time yeah is that is that not a danger when you've got the wire on it is and it isn't it is because you've got it on but it isn't because if you think about it from a villain's point of view there isn't a bigger insult is there than me sent you where's your wire you've got to be a brave man to say that haven't you did anybody ever say that to you no not once do you think that's more stupidity from criminals to not being overprotective of saying let me strap you down I think you get two kinds of criminals those that are easy going don't really worry about they think they're un-catchable untouchable untouchable and then you get those who are absolutely paranoid and it's counterproductive paranoia yeah because you end up straightened down people who are not boss then you get it kicked in did you ever have anybody saying there's something off about you no that didn't go who's with me because there's shoes they said I don't let you make it's got cop shoes on ha ha ha you can't say sometimes I pay to fucking shoes bought a copper another one I say I always can but back in the day you always had the vibe because they're never happy they got the seriousness about their face and you could tell the way they worked everything was suspicious ha ha ha ha I've always been good at reading people always been good at listening sometimes you get it wrong because there's people who are good at their job and this and that but I would always be over paranoid and that could be a bad thing but also can be a fucking good thing because you're always on it sometimes you get it wrong you lose friendships you lose loved ones because you're paranoid maybe a bit extreme but you're better safe than sorry absolutely I agree with you 100% and I would be and I've got to say on a job one of the guys goes to one of my mates he says you know what he says you could be the reason Cromwell's got it and my mate goes yeah I am and it went deadly silent and then my mate burst out and I know the old left but he was ha ha ha ha ha and then it got next that's sick ha ha ha ha ha you're a bit ass which I didn't want I didn't want him but I wanted to please not get him so that we could play the tape with him so we could think you're the reason why he's got him going yes I am how has that if you ever came across anybody you've done since yeah no never no that's mad though isn't it yeah it is I nearly fell a foul once but they hadn't been done I was on the job in a part of the country like 100 a mile from home I walked to the courier out a mile from my house to get an Indian take away and in there was one of the guys from the operation under my house away who'd met a girl in a club in London and come down to see her I thought what are you doing here I thought what the fuck are you doing here but I was stood there thinking if Ali the owner of the restaurant comes out and goes hello Mr. So I'll be fucking dead see when you're undercover what sort of limits have you got to if somebody says look shoot this gun to practice or shooting targets or take this bat a gear or shag this hooker where's your limits for being a copper and to not blow your cover again when I was in it was different and there's been a lot of high profile cases of guys who've shagged a target something particularly the eco warrior guys where they're getting the girls pregnant and everything when I did my course in 1992 if you had sex with anybody on the job you charge a rape because she's not consent the sex with you she's consent to the sex with the person she thinks you are so it's effectively a deception on the woman so the rule of the day was you don't fuck them I'll never fuck anybody on any job ever what about snuff? nah well again that's another myth because at the top end of the food chain they don't they don't sniff you know we only dealt with the top end I wouldn't go in against a gram dealer they'd be sending me one out of a kilo two kilos of Charlie those guys don't sniff coke because they think it's fools paradise yeah they're making money they're making money from them it's a bit to them it's a business it's just a it's a it's a computer it's just a thing it's not an actual thing I want to play with and they take users as liabilities you know you're a liability because if you're using it you might get nicked and then you're going to tell somebody about me and it's a mess because I had no woods on he was undercover but he had to take a bit of speed and he was out he's fucking up but he was bottom end undercover not with his job but he was like buying cheap drugs well what there is is there's three levels of buying okay there's street level gram drug buying no training required eco warrior and football who infiltrations some training but not enough and they got basically basically got disbanded they footballed a lot of training because they couldn't write evidence because they were thick as shit yeah and then there's the level one undercover we had a criteria we had to that had to be sat still before they could even call us so it had to be multi kilos large amounts big jobs guns explosives that's kind of thing I was trained with explosives and everything what's the biggest job you've got on? 300 kilos of coke 300 kilos that was the biggest but I've smuggled people by boat for criminal syndicates I'm a boat captain as well so this is a story which makes me smile and it's relevant to what we've got to say right now the big thing at the moment is people smuggling isn't it? people smuggling across the channel and they're all on the telly all the government officials all the politicians everybody saying we've got to stop these evil people smuggling these gangs there's no gangs there's some patsies who get stuck in because they can earn a few quid the people sending the people across from France by the French government I'll know that by the fact I'll tell you for why because I was asked to by a Turkish group of guys who were bringing people in Bollori if I'd bring 20 illegals from Belgium for money I said yeah of course I'll do that for you so I went and hired a boat for a thousand pound a day and I went to Ramsgate to head across the channel when the time was right and throughout the process the European government were provaricating about whether we'd let this happen or not and they've been absolute twats and then day before I'm getting stressed from the criminals now you know get your ass over there they're waiting they're waiting there's 20 of them on the side on Belgium and the day before the bus rings he goes he says Rob, there's a problem he says they want you to give a full safety briefing when the illegals come on board and issue them with a department of trade standard life jacket each right now I was undercover 17 years no criminal syndicate gives the fuck whether you make it or not across that channel because you've had your money you've paid up front don't matter they will not be forking out on shiny new red life jackets for every boat person on that boat and that's what's happening now every person coming over this channel now on those boats is wearing a department of trade issued life jacket and that's a government stipulation that's not a people smuggling bit stipulation that's not a criminal stipulation criminals don't give a shit so when you talk about people smuggling trafficking human trafficking yeah yeah how bad does human trafficking in the UK again I never really got involved in it so I don't know but I was involved in smuggling people and drugs across the channel by boat and lorry and with the way it's being portrayed at the moment is not right those people are not being smuggled by criminal gangs they're being smuggled by governments so see when you're smuggling people over in the drugs is it one big shipment or have you got to keep the operation going to gather more information for criminals the big families and the people smuggling 300 key over like is that you got everything that you need there's more to the full story and gather all the evidence now Jim with an undercover officer being deployed you get the evidence as the drug progresses you don't just go for example I'd meet somebody and he'd say I want you to move some gear and I'd go yeah how do you want to do it and then he'd say how do I want to do it and I need to get this this this and this I need some money and they'd pay some upfront money and then somebody else might come along hire up the food chain to be happy to like you know to make sure they've been hunky-dory and then you'd go off and do it pick up wherever the commodity was whether it'd be three tonnes of puff 20 keys of heroin 50 keys of heroin bringing the keys to Charlie come back as soon as the people pick that gear up need when does entrapment come into play entrapment comes into play if they're not involved in that course there have to be you can't deploy an undercover and set a job up we don't do that in the UK we don't do any that kind of stuff where you like I've heard in America they set the gear up and everything and then bring the people into it we don't do that in us it's always got to be you've already got to be involved in the course of conduct before we can deploy an undercover so they've already got to have the operation and play they've got to have the operational intelligence to play yeah they can have a meeting and say well what's your evidence and where's your strategy so you couldn't go to someone and say I've got 100 kilos I'll smack their I can get you a good price no no this wouldn't happen and the problem with when people talk about corruption the big problem with corruption is for me is what's to stop me snitching on me when I'm corrupt and setting me up because the old bill do set me up on traps on undercover traps you know they try and catch bent old bill with undercover old bill so if you're undercover they'll put people undercover to try and trap you not an undercover officer but if they thought it was Ben yes if they go in from say for example this is a hypothetical situation Rob's undercover and he's working the lorry and he's bringing back Fruner Kiyachari but he's banging 10 kilos on top for himself they get me as well they put him to get me when you're undercover then like what's the hardest part being an undercover agent? Home life Sacrifice that goes Sacrifice, yeah I mean I've got two kids they didn't really know me for 18 years they knew I was their dad but I was away too much my youngest daughter I haven't spoke to for three years you know she's a lovely kid but we don't talk Do you see a bit of yourself in your own dad? No I don't because I did really try hard knowing how bad it was for me as a child I tried to bounce it off as much as I can it didn't always work but I did it I did it a lot of time like for example if I was in an operation and I wanted to go and I've fought a week away with Mrs. I'd just say to the villains I'm going to wait for a week Bye that's acceptable nobody's going to say why or no you're not so I try and bounce the whole life it's not easy but you can make it work How can you switch off from being a character for one person to then being a family man? How? because obviously this method acting is well in it like where your Daniel Day Lewis and your Jim Carries and he went I think it was Andy Hoffman he played but he stayed in full character and at King Daniel he lost on his job people are losing respect from him because he was just so ingrained in being that character when can you switch off from being an undercover copper working with criminals buzzing surrounded by mad guys which you loved part of you probably wanted to be that guy or was that guy as a young kid before you went to the Navy but to then kids at home misses how do you switch off can you ever switch off I think I did I say that you don't know a hundred percent but I think I did because I used to on the job where somebody identified me as a police officer and gave me my name I thought I can't stay London now I've got to move because there could be a bang on my door one morning it could all go tits up for my family so I moved down to the South Coast and I used to think when I passed the M25 going home I commuted for 15 years to the South Coast from London for work for peace of mind when I got the M25 I was like I'm home now that one and a half hour drive shut me off from work what was your lowest moment and the police force I don't think I really had any low moments I was to be honest we absolutely loved it it was a great job I think the police let me down but they let me down since I left not while I was in because when again this is another story in the book but I'll give you the briefest deals of it back in 2008 we went on to Turkey and we met a waiter and a Kurdish waiter in the restaurant and he says to us at the end of the season oh you know can I talk to you over email you know because you've been good customers well for the time you've been here blah blah blah so he took our email addresses he didn't email me he emailed my Mrs and he just started talking to her oh how's it going it's hot here blah blah blah this is happening that's happening talk about the bars and the restaurants and the people that we knew and over time he was in he was starting to chip chip chip chip chip away and then he'd say where's Robin oh he's at work oh he's always at work and then he started to plant seeds into her mind that she was getting a raw deal and probably she thought she was as well to be fair and then one day he says I go into the where our computer is at home and she shuts the screen down and I realize something's not right so when she goes to bed I'll log it back in again pull up the MSN screen and read the conversation and he's basically saying you know you should leave him he's not your type blah blah blah if you haven't read this Nope and if you haven't he's like hey let's go you know yeah Well it's a little bit annoying that year to Turkey and he said he said it she said she was coming and he said oh can you bring some money because I've got no money and she said yeah I'll try and get some yeah and that and then he said I really I'm in love with you worse this effect and she he said when we when you come can we have sex and I miss his kind of yeah and that was the terminal point of my relationship and the long the short is he continued that and he kept taking money she was giving him money literally and he treated it awfully which I'd never done but I thought was no way I'm gonna blow this affair open right now because my kids are doing their exams at school it's gonna be a world of trauma I've got world of work on my plate to deal with as well I don't want to have a fight with my Mrs. right now so I never told her let her carry on let her keep it going and but it was stressful reading like reams and reams of disgusting shit about me from him which he wasn't batting off it was awful so I started boxing I was a martial arts instructor and I've been I've got free black belts in three different styles of karate and I've been trained for 30 years and I can have a toro I can have a row I don't like it I don't like a fight but I can have one if needed need be and I started boxing I'd never boxed in my life I was 50 at this point I was due to retire in the year I was 14 hours to return here and I started boxing and I become really good really quick and I started getting taken to take part in shows around the UK white collar boxing shows and I'd go there and I have a fight and big massive crowds and then one day there was a fight on and there was a fight on and I went to the training session the week before with a boxing club and the training goes nobody's come in there's just you and two of us says what we'll do is we'll have a we'll have a sparring session with the pro boxers next door doing some shadow boxing and he marches in the training was right the rules are you're not I'd hit them but they'll I'd hit you but it's like perfect training you're getting away from people can't find me they're trying to go can fight so the first I'd goes in three residency no problem I go in there martial arts trained bangs my nose in the first 10 seconds he was a lovely lovely guy and I don't hold him any any hurt for this at all he hit me back eight times in a millisecond head body head body head body and I when I came out the when I hope actually like my head together my brain was shaking and I got out the ring after at least three rounds of what's what fucking that wasn't very nice I didn't like that made a laugh of it and then we went home that day and I had a headache from that day to the following Saturday but the following Saturday I was fighting a big show and all my family and friends and brothers had paid 60 pound a head to watch 60 of them so I'm outside went to come in for my fight and I've had seen the doctors and when we was now I'm absolutely fine but literally my head was banging weights outside guy comes in from the red corner to either Tiger Rocky starts giving all that jumping about then again there goes out the blue corner is Rob soul he's 50 he's our oldest fighter today cross starts booting back off bollocks load of crap and I then I came out to him I one foot in the grave Victor Meldrew I jumped in there but I was fit as fuck literally I jumped over the ring threw me top off I was fucking ripped and the compact goes fucking Elgents this is gonna be a fight and mean this guy the three round tear up and it was deemed a draw in the end he was 30 I was 50 and deemed a draw but afterwards you normally go lap dance in barbers can't go I'm really really poorly so I went home and lay down in bed on the Saturday night and woke up the following Thursday and my head was literally thumping so I went to QA hospital and they said you got a bleed on the brain and they treat me with some blood thinners and everything and sent me back home said it's rest you can't go and holiday on Friday where you're gonna go you've got to get sorted but then I went to complete depressive state I became completely depressed and I've dropped from 13 stone a solid muscle to 10 stone a skin and bone my head was spiked I couldn't think I couldn't drive my car I couldn't go anywhere I became a recluse I didn't leave home for two years I never left the house I grew a beard a stank everything stank my house stank I didn't I didn't eat proper food I was an absolute mental wreck the doctors came to see me put me on the facts in 1200 milligrams which is an anti-depressant didn't touch me tried to kill myself four or five times cut through my femoral artery with a knife so so painful when you start to slit your skin with a carbon knife I couldn't do it and now that might because I didn't want to either I didn't push out I could probably pass out if I didn't whether that was some inbuilt thing in me not to die but I just couldn't get to go through the whole way to the artery and and then the one day after about two years of not going out and not seeing anybody after says Rob if you can't kill yourself you have to get better and at the time I don't need an in-ground swimming pool at home in the back garden big quite a big one and it was gone green it was full of dead animals and in touch for two years it was rank emptied with a bucket over probably the course of seven days emptied with what with a bucket completely cleaned out the lining refilled water got it working again I felt absolutely elated so I went to see me doctor I said I'm feeling better at the time I was eating a bacon baguette and we're in a Superman onesie now we should have realized me weren't right there yeah you can ask me you know you're the police so anyway you said oh well keep taking the tablets and come back later so I went away but the tablets because I was on a what's that called that start in the main your phase of a depressive episode were making me high and I literally became a raving lunatic off the scale nuts violent looking for fights everywhere going out my car the Mazda MX 5 sports car roof down two o'clock in the morning doing 130 miles an hour in 30 minutes breaking then the discs were red with heat and pull in front of blokes cars with blokes and get out of the car I'll kill every motherfucking one of you no reason at all just because they've been there and eventually my daughter goes I think my dad's gone nuts and she reports you to to the local mental health team and they send a couple of people to see me by this time I've smashed all the bathroom tiles out in the bathroom I've smashed the bath out smashed the sink out I'm living on a mattress on the floor I bought thousands of pounds of a useless gear on credit cards because I didn't really need and a guy this guy is my hero because he saved my life he's named Skip Bauer I want to publicly name because he deserves every credit for it Asian guy you guys you know he said Mr. Sel we've come to talk to you about your mental health I says I tell you what you don't fuck off I'll knock both of you out now fuck off so he came back with a couple of cops I said look one of you sits foot towards the threshold from where you are now I said I'll beat the living fuck out of all of you now fuck off next minute full tactical team outside my house for arms everything and they smashed the house in Nick me took me to base and stoked so I kind of intense a care unit and and I was nuts and I'm not no no don't do that I was absolutely off the scale nuts nuts beyond that you could comprehend you could be nuts and but extremely violent as well which wasn't me I'm a timid guy I'm a mild guy really when it comes to fight and I can fight but I don't like to fight I'd rather say hi how you doing have a point and but I got lucky in there and in there was a was a guy who just spoke with a rest the phone accent and he said hop on back to him he was white and he was charming blood routed bumper club and also so I was thinking mate you're getting around my tits and one night the the woman who was in charge of the ward at night she goes um he says to me oh you bitch get me a cup of tea so I went fuck that I think lean cross over I said who you talking to your piece of shit it took is out slapped him around give my right back and slap around the face and he fell off the chair on the floor she pressed your arm the riot squad turned up I turned them over the three of them and then I went to the kitchen out of carbon knife and extinguished I said anybody comes down with a fucking kill you next year's full tactical firearms team dogs everything at the hospital eventually tasing me with two tasers and carted me off to Thornford Park in Newbury which is a priori run hospital but uses an over spill from Broadmoor and I spent three weeks in the pad itself being injected daily by and they wouldn't let them have me so that they get eight men with shields that to beat me and then they'd spin me over jab me up the arse leaving me there for another three days and I just stayed there and eventually the drugs calmed me down brought me back down to a reasonable level again and then while I was in there in the in the pad itself I was allowed out for exercising the yard on my own and the window to the next ward which is basically a prison it's not a hospital it was full of insane criminals one of them was from the burger bar have you ever heard of the burger bar boys in Birmingham one of them was from that gang he said oh yeah it was here it was two it was where the where the Bucklebury gang there's there's twelve of us two two black ten white you know it's it's mean in here mate it's fucking mean so when they came to me when I was feeling a bit better and the doctor goes oh we're going to put you on the Bucklebury ward I said are you fucking serious I said you're going to put an X cop on the Bucklebury ward with 12 insane criminals he goes what's the problem with that I said mate you're not real I said there's only going to be one outcome I've they're going to kill me or I'm going to kill them which one do you want so he said you need more time seclusion but look for another week so anyway eventually they they put me on the ward and I spent a week on the ward I spent a week on the last three months on the ward but I decided what I was saying enough to these to bring in a persona non military non non non police persona that said I was ex-navi I've had a dramatic divorce blah blah blah and I'm a boxer but while I was in there the the most important part of the story for me is firstly there's no care in there whatsoever there is no care at all in in any of their mental hospitals contrary to what they let me think secondly the drugs are dished out and they swapped literally on you know people with taking back in drugs for schizophrenia given to people who've got trouble for you know this is just mental nobody takes their tablets they sell them for fags and sweets swap them and when I was in there I met a guy called Julian and but I got really palliative he was 65 I was 50 I said what's your story Julian he goes well he says when I was 13 he says I got took into care me and my mum couldn't come with the kids I was okay he says and we got sent to care and as a protest he said I set fire to the curtains of the care home he said I got three years in borsal asking with intent to endanger life he said in there he said I was 13 pretty he said I got raped every day by the bigger lads he said the only way I could stop the rapes was to make a homemade knife and stab them but instead of them getting done for raping me I got done for GBH in them he said so I got more bird he said I ended up on Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight with Ronnie Cray Ronnie Cray says Julian you're a very pretty man and for the duration of your sentencing you'll be my wife he says and he beat the fuck out of me and raped me every day literally beat me to a pulp and raped me every single day violent sex was his thing he says and then one day a girl comes on the wing he says he's a nonce paedophile he says you're gonna kill him and Julian says when when Ronnie Cray gives an order to another inmate it's not a request it's an order he said so I cut the bloke's throat with a knife but he didn't die he says oh but I got lifed off criminally insane without parole he says I'm 65 and I've been inside 52 years I cried I literally burst into tears now I can't tell you if that's a true story on odd because people made up stories about why they were there because they didn't want the truth to be coming out plus the psychotic plus the psychotic as well so I can't say that's a hundred percent a factual story but when he told me he said it with all sincerity and I looked at him I was just got fucking on me 52 years and you've not seen daylight and when he said he said Rob if they said to me tomorrow off you go he said I don't think I could he said I've never seen a plane fly I've never seen anything he said my life's been unstandstill for all those years and all I've been is abused all my life he said what will I be like outside what kind of man will I be I don't know Veronica he was an aunt he was a he was a horrible bastard he was when he got jailed he was in bed with a 14-year-old or a 13-year-old boy that he was these people shouldn't be glorified plus not all for gangsters and maybe involved in that life but to harm kids you're a fucking you're a you're a wronging he was a proper wronging yeah and I don't get why they say you can rehabilitate somebody that's like saying I can rehabilitate me and you to prefer men to women it just can't be done whatever you prefer you prefer you can't say to somebody now from tomorrow you want fancy kids you're gonna fancy women again it's not gonna happen I've never never wouldn't dream of fancy in a kid so were you telling your story in all the trauma that you've been through like I say the brain stores everything do you think because all this shit you went through you've you've had it well you've became a karate expert you've been under cover you could play different characters you've had all the trauma your whole fucking life but then obviously your missus having an affair do you think that was the trigger of releasing every single bit of it I definitely had to look to it it was definitely stressful that time of my life yeah and why I don't I don't regret having the affair and when we started here but why did me a massive favor yeah but what I'm seeing is when you're telling me that story why did you not treat it as a husband instead of an undercover cop because you went and feel investigation of what she was doing why not jump on it straight away because it's like you are working on a job instead of being a husband and saying listen you're a fucking slag you've been caught yeah fuck off why did you put yourself through that pain and torment of looking at those messages being called this and that hurrah green asex like what was going through your method of thinking because for me it's like you went full undercover instead of being a husband I would say I definitely did use that skill at that time but the reason behind it was calculated was because I knew I was due to retire in one year I knew that this relationship wasn't going to go away if I confronted it at that time it wasn't going to go anywhere so I decided that I would stay the way I was negotiate a deal that was good for both of us but not not mullering me and my kids and and do that and what I did I did to protect the future of my kids yeah but that's torment and misery and pain and it's you've lost at the end of it with putting yourself in the mental ward then oh yeah yeah but I mean I've never been never anticipated that yeah of course so when you've ended up staying in yourself becoming a recluse for two years did she go to turkey no no because before that happened when we got divorced on the 10th the first of October 2010 on the first of 2000 2010 first of all I was in turkey front him up what happened well so you've went and seen the guy who was trying to have an affair with yeah yeah yeah basically he worked at a bar and I walked in he was with another woman holding her hand he let go of that and jumped him up when he saw me and I said right I said all I'm going to say to me I said you can stay there love I said all I'm going to say to you is your relationship with my wife is over you get where I'm coming from your relationship with my wife is over you will not be getting another fucking penny because you've given quite a bit of money and the woman who was with him slapped him and said you save him bastard he's not taking money off her as well anyway I said who's the owner of this bar he said he's out there I said which one he said the guy there so point there's five guys outside all thick set leather jackets and I knew they were crooks just by their appearance I mean I said excuse me I knew the only goes yeah I said can I have a word in private he goes yeah of course again what is it I said I said I'm talking front of your friends I said see that guy over there you see where you are that's my nephew I was that guy there has been stealing money off me through my wife for the last two years I says it stops today I need sorting today now I'd like you to sort it but if not I'll sort it I said but I prefer you to sort it because you're you're your skin so he pulled him over he gave him a massive backhanded slap he says get two I bought the jd in two glasses for me and Rob and I went and sat down and he says you speak this fucking man's wife ever again he said I'll send you him in a fucking box he said you're my nephew you're a disgraceful cunt and I sat with him and drank with him for an hour he gave me his mobile and he says I can tell you now he says he says I'm the head of the Kurdish mafia in this town he said if you were to come in here fists flowing god working he said you'd be fucking dead now he says all of my men out there armed with guns he said and they'd have shot you dead he said but you came in like a real man you came in talking not making the scene not showing me up he says because of that I respect you he says and you'll never come to harm in my town if ever you need any help anywhere here there's my number for me how much did you miss he sent him thousands why was she so gullible to her I'd love to ask her the question to be honest I just don't get she sent him thousands literally and on one occasion on one of the messages he he said bring five thousand on Monday or I'll beat you like a dog again again you beat her like a dog again I'll never beat her once ever never even to shout at her properly and she's seven years younger than me so she would have been 43 how old was he 30 what do you think that was you think that was lack of listen she's in the wrong but you think how much does your lack of affection come into play because you says at the start that you shut off your emotions before the shit that you've been through do you think you were missing something from you can't have a listen some of the cheats are wrong and all fucking aspects but for your own perspective in your life and choosing the police over family even though you didn't want to because everything you probably did was for your family I don't know but how would you think was missing do you think for her to crave that from some young kid talking shit who's plain plain for anybody to see that they're obviously manipulating people who are getting the bar and seeing targets but what do you think was missing in your relationship for that to then go like that I don't know but I will say this and I think this is quite common generally amongst married men with kids I don't know a single married man married man over 40 with kids who has sex with his wife not one not one now I don't know why that is I don't know because the kids have come along and it's just we're done we've got the kids we don't need the sex anymore but to me the sex is what binds you together as a couple bond it's the bond it's the love it's the real love and when she was writing to him online and he she said oh when I get there I'm going to suck your cock and lick your balls and all up and I was thinking we used to do that I thought what went wrong and it reminds me of a joke I heard once and it said how do you stop your girlfriend from giving you a blowjob Mariah how do you stop your girlfriend from giving you blowjob Mariah I don't know how the fuck you control that I don't know how you control that I genuinely don't know a lot of men would fucking kill their wife if I'm honest that is the ultimate level of disrespect men crave respect women crave attention but for you to then look at that there's must be something wrong with you up here as well oh yes for sure for you to go through that and I'm not being and I respect you to high degree with your honesty but I've got to be honest there's something tapped yeah for you to be accepting that yeah and and I agree with you totally I think there's a coldness in me from all my years of abuse as a child that perhaps I never fully allow anybody into me into my close you know into into here yeah I'm with a with a girl now and I've dedicated the book to her name's Jane her husband died at 52 of cancer and and she's the best woman I've ever met she's the only woman who I've ever thought you're you're what I wanted in a woman from day one from the minute I was a child what I want in a woman you are it you're everything I want in a woman and I was I've got a thing where I say there's three types of people in the world givers takers and pitstakers and everybody fits somewhere in there and she's a giver an armor giver I like to give love give cuddles crime when it's crying time play with the kids run wrecking idiot being idiot but and but there's also a dark side of my personality as well I know for a fact when they were when they recruited me to do to do the suicide bombing killing they knew I could kill they knew that I'd walk up to somebody put two bullets in the back of the brain so I'm not really happy and not sweat and not worry about it and go and have a cup of tea and that's why they recruited me for that I was recruited for suicide bombing killings back in the late 80s well basically remember john charles the men is is yeah do you know the story no basically john charles on the news though oh john charles was on the news massively but what basically am was and this is what I don't this is why I don't go with conspiracy theories and all those things that people say about about what's going on in the world now because for me if I was in the prime minister of a country and a guy flew in from the lebanon hell bent on going to work with a suicide vest what would you do your news coming you knew he's going to wear a vest you know he's going to blow people up on the tube and what would you do kill him before he gets over you you break into his flat where you know he's living you've got his address he's in there you've got the place bug you send the ss in a freedom one slot in with a psalon sir cut him into the fish that's what I do if I was the prime minister but we don't because we're civilized we're a civilized society so what we do is we leave him there and we set the job on him a surveillance job and we have an observation point outside the block of flats where he lives in south london and the guy comes out and the man who's in the with eyes on with the binoculars goes yeah target number one's out the address and he's left left left now as it happens john charles the ministers was a pretty good look alike for the terrorists from the lebanon or algea wherever he came from he was a good look alike and the guy in the observation point got it wrong end of but from that point forward john charles mays starts walking with a rucksack down towards the tube station command structure if he goes near the tube or the bus kill him that that order is given by the by gold command that's it it's done deal what happens john charles mays he goes to the tube station he doesn't pay for a ticket he jumps the barrier so that's run down the steps the two guys behind him what i used to do my job not me though them run down after him gets on the tube one gets behind him two bullets to the brainstem wrong man heartbreaking for john charles mays's family i agree heartbreaking but should have been dealt with last week when the guy arrived trying to fight terrorism within the legal framework is like buying a chocolate fire guard what happened when they killed their own game well it was a big inquiry that they were they were suspended from duty you know there was talk of charging them with murder it was a fucking box there's a guy there's a policeman waiting to stand trial for murder now did you know that no for shooting somebody now for me i was i came to farm for work and i have a simple attitude around that james but whether you believe whether you like it or not i don't really care if i'm carrying a gun and i'm pointing at you do as you're fucking told that's it because i'm going home tonight and if you move one finger you're getting it and i don't mean that in horrible way i mean the difference between life and death for an hour man is that that's how long it takes to kill somebody and you haven't got time for that and when you when you're in a farm situation it's mad it's fucking mentally it's exhausting your tunnel vision the sirens are going there's noise there's people screaming i'm please i'm please all that shit that anybody who says they can have a casual thought about that it's taking the piss there's no casual thoughts going on in anybody's head you're reacting to a very very awful situation and if a police officer shoots somebody it's not deliberate nobody gets that gun in the holster goes on and goes today i'm going to kill some fucker they just don't because we're not made like that humans aren't made like that obviously when some people break into people's houses as well and the house owners kick fuck out them i beat them or bat i stab them i've seen them go to prison yeah it's mental why is that it's wrong what's it so what is the self-defense law in the uk well you defend yourself to a reasonable amount what's reasonable what's reasonable to me and what's really might be two different things yeah and it would be wouldn't it because you all deal with things based on your own perception of life experiences and florida after you step forward to someone if they've warned you and in florida you step forward they can shoot you they'll lose a different yeah and all friends will carry guns and they've got to forget what the law is called but if anybody if they pull a gun out and say look don't come any closer on the sun if they go as close as a ninja they can shoot them yeah for me the big problem with what i say is we're all spineless we all want to see the you know people mulled whether it be politicians celebrities place you want to see them mulled you're not happy with them just getting told off well you're not really being being dealt with properly you're what you want their fruit all the time and um it's going to be this country's going down the toilet million percent even with the tax and stuff as well yeah and how did the corrupt government and everybody on lockdown and they're all partying at christmas as well i don't forget that shit people couldn't see their loved ones and babies and and they're all partying christmas whether they do you know what that was i wrote to boris johnson then i said boris stop talking on the tv because you're lying i said i can see your lips moving you and my man cock i said you're both liars you don't believe it you don't believe that this is dangerous as this there's a science that's saying just say that you don't believe it leave the country out of lockdown let you know i'm not saying there wasn't a pandemic i'm not a denier i'm fully triple jabbed but it wasn't it wasn't the day it wasn't the millions of deaths that was predicted it never was going to be it never was you know me and me and jane we're fucking ignored it all but is that not scared you how fast the world can get to lockdown yeah i think that was a dummy run for what's to come in the future well again i've made up one of my mates is big into all that and um and i've i've laughed because for the reasons i've said like you know i i don't think that we're that coordinated there's a group anybody and the problem with with the conspiracy my brother's a builder he goes to new york he said i've been the trade tellers it was definitely a knockdown by the americans with explosives because he knows his structure i says all right i saw what james i says let's have a chat i says i'm gonna organize and knocking down the twin towers i'm american i go to my mate james james did i see knocking down the twin towers and killing 30 000 people what i do when james says no what i do i've got to kill james what about when the next person says no i've got to kill that guy as well so when you're going to do something you everything everything everything every every venture of any nature whether it be criminal or anything needs cooperation from a group of people and that's why a lot of people in jail because they talk to the one person who they shouldn't and they all force you to i'm not saying they didn't know that was coming between towers i think every bit of intelligence i think for that to be is extreme it is a possibility but then you look at iraq as well weapons of mass destruction yeah there was no weapons lies total lies there the media can't betray whatever they want and people believe what they see people believe what they read people believe what's out there so your wife anybody people can be manipulated easily with certain words you've done it your whole life yeah at undercover you've manipulated everybody that's come into your life to a certain degree yeah so it's fucking easy done yeah and as human beings we are quite thick as well yeah because everybody does stay in a bubble where they don't ask the questions yeah i like to sit back and go listen i'm not a scientist or a doctor whether the earth is round the flat i don't give a fuck the twin towers or whatever i genuinely don't know the only thing is it questions me is why would they do it what's the bigger purpose is it money is it greed is it just sick individuals who've got so much that they just want to destroy other people's lives with vaccines or flues or whatever pandemics they've created every every so often there's a new war yeah every so often yeah there's a new plague or there's a new destruction of the planet the patterns are there to see that okay something might be a mess but for me i concentrate on me my life yes what boris johnson says or what everybody says i don't give two fucks they don't control me yes they can have a saying you're schooling you're upbringing system that you're in life is a system it's the same system so i just like to question and try and have as much fun with it as possible i don't have all the answers i'm not a fucking guru i'm not a conspiracy phase because i just question everything because i don't know i can read watch a couple of videos read a couple of books and go ah that's interesting human beings just go towards what makes them feel comfortable but it doesn't make them right either no no you've got a question what do you think of the system in the UK the system that we have of what everything schooling i think it's all bent well that's my view on the police is the police are lazy they need to make it not a job for life they're made to need to review them every year and if they're not going to get the fuck out of them can come out i did 25 years in the police not one person was sacked for not performing that's got me bollocks every other job i've ever seen speaking up making your targets you're gone sorry mate you didn't sell 10 hours as you're gone sorry mate you didn't do this you're gone this is only the public sector you can be fucking bone hard and survive can't be right that's why the bills are that's where the initials are spread NHS yes some of them work out most of them don't fact i don't care what they say i've seen qa the casual department 25 am is stacked up but year before the pandemic yes we need when the NHS needs sort the police needs sort and they need to get rid of all the deadwood they need to get people motivate they need to start thinking about for example in the police the most important thing is budget control and not a complaint what it should be is catch those fucking criminals who are causing society the most damage and if you get a few complaints so be it budget well everyone has to have a budget but let's use the money wisely you know drugs forget drugs legalize them it won't cause one more person to use it than use it now all my mates use coke they're all charlie heads all right why do they use it because they can and they like it why do i have a drink a lager because i can and i like it we're in columbia a kilo of cocaine how much 500 it's 1500 now 1500 in the uk yeah 30 40 grand 35 to 30 to 35 000 right cut down to pieces i'm not in a game anyway i don't know if you're undercover you could be just a plant i said go and ask him questions just let's see what his actual who's doing this interview i don't know the price of your school supplies i slept in the old character there you're giving your fucking job so anyway what we're saying is cocaine 32 to 35 000 a kilo cut to shreds as it is in the uk 200 000 pound big profit massive profit now cocaine the average street series of cocaine 11 to 20 pure 20% gear 80% novocaine or baby's milk for master or some other powder mix nothing no cocaine effect whatsoever no no no high no fuck all so i bought cocaine for 17 years and only three people sold it at the beauty that they arrived at only three every loss cut to the shreds so people are getting high on the thought of it and a bit of it yeah they're not getting high on the 75 percent hit or even though they think they are everyone says it's the greatest gear in the world but it ain't his shite no it's push it's piss yeah so the only thing the only drug i'm dead against is heron because heron is a positive a hundred percent a killer kills bodies kills heads kills everything but coke all the other drugs recreation faint and all that's a big yeah this but do you not see this well we're the government is saying you can't have that but the prescription drugs are equally damaging yeah which you can have i think there's a human mindset i feel as if everybody should be in a normal state which is natural in life which is exercise cold water eating the best at foods but we're living in a state where people are lost people are confused everything you take externally it takes you away from a conscience free my mind doesn't escape so the only ones listen i've tried all drugs i'm drinking drug free now for many years but the only ones i think mdma has a lot of benefits to the mindset i believe yeah weed listen it's started at present but it's probably better than most yeah um alcohol if you can fucking maintain it to us a couple but we don't because we're greedy all over the world and it's the feeling of taking away your pain it takes us away that's why listen i don't drink because it takes me to coca and it takes me to lie and steal anger violence i didn't like because sometimes i'll be a good guy on it and sometimes i'd be an evil and angry and yeah and i didn't like it had power over me in control of how i felt how i think and i just believe there's everything grown from earth there's many because heroin and cocaine is a plant it's just obviously how it's manipulated to then how people make the same feel same as but when you think of the you know the anger and angst it causes the the movement of it you know the shootings the stabbing the violence if it's in the chemist wouldn't matter would it but that's why they don't want to legalize it though because then the police force would numbers would be off they wouldn't be court cases they wouldn't be prison systems there's 40 grand 50 grand per a mate and every prison it's a money making scheme it's billion dollar industry it's a trillion dollar industry and uh yeah it's hard to if you take away drugs then there's no violence take away alcohol there's no violence because people sit to get drunk they get full ideas and then they cause trouble you never see people fighting really sober now unless they've got a good set of balls and you know keakin handle himself like i haven't interviewed enough people to know who's gem who's and who's full of shit i got a lot of gangsters on i know they're full of shit um i'm not fucking daft but it's just there's so many ways to make the world a better place but i feel as if we're so far the other end of the spectrum that i don't know if i'll ever see it in my life team with those big changes i can't see just point it back and that's why i've i've sort of adopted the lifestyle but it's and i don't mean this in a selfish way i mean because i'm it's about me and the people around me you know my wife my girlfriend we're not married but my kids my kids are massively important to me how many kids have you got two girls but i said one of them has spent me for three years but that's because her husband came over she married a guy from turkey he comes over i let him live in my house i give him a job and he fucking shits on me what the fuck is it with you in turkey oh why the fuck you're still going to turkey everything you've went there you've had issues because recently i've gone back no no no no i've cut my steps on in a fucking i'm asking you to fucking get a grip especially because it's like i'm going back for more pain don't you take me a fucking girl friend if i don't mean she's a bit lousy don't you be sitting on a podcast next year you start a fucking broad more lost the fuck girl that you've loved in your life yeah but i always the thing is you can't control your kids falling over that's the problem isn't it of course she didn't go there with me to meet him she met there on her own holiday met him she's and you know it's like you know i met a guy what she like well oh he's dancing on the bar yeah he's a fucking stripper oh oh he's dancing on the bar and as he got house no he's not nothing nothing at all no house no car no money no fuck all oh that's a good start but you love him i'll support that and that's the way i am you love him i'll support that but he's turned out to be an absolute ass and he treats her worse than any white man ever would have any other man family's everything for me yeah and i get kids to different women and it is a pain in the ass if i'm honest kids are getting to that age now they're really what they spend much time with their mums and dads and they feel as if they know everything and i was the same at that age i was a smart ass yeah so i get it but everything i do is for a better life for my family and kids but there's a lot of disagreements and people say oh i love my family and i'm happiest with my family family are hard work yes because it's the worry and i'm a worrier as well and i know how the world operates yeah a lot of people are stuck in a little bubble 95 and don't really see the destruction yeah i've interviewed a lot of people abuse that kids raped and fucking and it breaks your heart like my daughter i don't have it let i have a sleepovers and she fucking hates me for it but i don't know who's in that household exactly it might not be the mum and dad it could be the brother it could be the uncle coming in the creepy cunt yeah i don't know sorry i said cunt and i promised yeah i promised my good friend Katie that's not serious i'm sorry Katie um that's that says it twice as well yeah listen to um but yeah life is life but see when you were in the loony band seen you're in the wake by these sales how many visitors did you have none do you know as well that and that's i'm glad you raised the point because i did send i you i was access to a phone when i was in the loony bin i rang the serious organized crime major who i worked for at the time when i left who should have looked after me i said look i'm in a loony bin surrounded by insane criminals please move me to a military hospital i'm gonna get killed i'm gonna die not a peep and they actually banned everyone from coming near me and i thought i've given you the best years of my life you cunts and all you've done is put your head in the sand and turn the other way when i'm in trouble and i've been up in the 17 years probably 10 to 20 life threatening situations where i could have died for the job and not one person was allowed to come and see me not one how much does that make you then question that you're unused oh i was but to be fair i always knew that anyway yeah you know i was i knew from the military that we were here for a purpose get up on and i've always made myself the best life i can for me what i want with the money i've got and the people around me and i mix with the people i like and i don't mix the people i can't be asked with i've got a real problem with liars i can't stand liars and that's why my daughter's husband's i've got problem because he just lies 24 seven to everybody he meets i just can't do that because i i like i don't mind the thief the thief he needs it he might be what he wants it a liar he's just spying this he's a spying this man when was the moment for you rob that you knew your life was fucked when was when was the when was the penny dropped because if you're filled with all the shit they're injecting you with and all the pain you lost your misses when was that moment because you're a strong guy you've let you see what you've come through in life and what you've overcome to be successful takes massive balls as well but when did you know you were at your lowest and okay you were you were you needed help well at the lowest is when i was under appeal hearing to get out to get out right i appealed to get out because that's obviously over three months i became quite sane again i've got my ability to talk again i had to communicate but the ward was violent and dangerous and i knew when i appealed if i don't get this appeal i'm not gonna survive i can't do another year of this you know a year living a lie again because they all thought i was in the navy in a boxer you know what i mean so eventually it was the ward has goaded me about it letting them know i was a cop to keep me in line you know i mean and they baited me on it the people in the in the ward and i thought i'm not going to live another year and that's why i've mentioned skip by by name because i said to skip about my address when he when the raid went on fuck off you or i'll kill you right and he went when they had the appeal hearing back at them thought about me to leave they fought tooth and nail to keep me they said i was still insane i was still capable of extreme violence blah blah blah regurgitate the ship from when i from when i came in how i was and the judge on the appeal hearing he goes well he said we're having real difficulty here um is mr bar where here and and skip i was there because if i was going to be released we'd be into his care he said mr bar we said we're having difficulty here mr cells not presenting as a maniac or a lunatic if you saw him now in your town would you section him and skip by well if you don't mean a spiteful man bearing him on what i said to him if you did said oh we definitely would that would be me gone for years and dead that would be me that brown bread 100% but he stood at me went no sir i wouldn't and i couldn't he's perfectly normal now and bearing in mind he's an amt whatever they call them the mental people and they've had two consultants i can't understand i'm nuts he says no they said thank you very much mr cell you're free to go that was a moment in my life i'll never forget i cried i hugged him i ran back the world got me cased back and ran out literally he saved my life i'll never forget that man as long as i live and what was that feeling then from coming back into normality where you've not get your wife anymore i don't know if you were through divorce or all the way through it now i'll finish it so what was that feeling then starting from scratch again to figure out who you were and what you were about everything yeah break total rebuild in my life i was i was an absolute wreck for the first 12 months not not not a not a mental wreck but an emotional wreck what do you think that is then do you think that like i said earlier was you think that was just the head of it all just everything that you went through as a kid just everything your whole life the lies the stealing the abuse the things that you've seen try to do right in life um not saying from you but from other people you're surrounded with on edge because the central nervous system is a powerful thing no matter how game we think we are we can shut it off we can't because i've seen some of the strongest men on this planet some serious killers break because it's not here's not normal we're not brought on this planet to harm people and lie and steal and cheat and everything that we do but we do because it's fucking here in front of us we're living in a weird society i genuinely don't know what the world is i think we're in a computer game i feel as if this is like a like an avatar like like a the matrix yeah that's what was it i've said you knew him andrew tie i've had them on twice andrew and i just i don't it feels like an avatar it feels like we're in a game and then you've got met a version even in another game i feel as if there's different levels to it to get to the real source which i don't know could be i believe it might be a beautiful thing i've been around people when they've took their last breath and um when they take their last breath it's not a last breath of pain or misery it's a last breath of yeah it's a fucking release yeah it's like a relief you know the way like this is a mad experience in here know how you go in computer games and you can pick your own avatar and the way you want to dress them and their jobs i think this is it man i just that's my own opinion from it can i just say i'd pick something better than me i love an ndr right but it's just it's just i don't know what it is but how did you then work on yourself to make sure you never get sent back i am i don't think i physically worked on it i think it just um i think it just came i think i just it was a gradual growing process were you scared that you went nuts again oh absolutely after that see when you lost and i have got i have got that in me i know yeah because i done a homeless documentary slept on the street for seven days and after four days i thought i'm a homeless i questioned my own mind went because i wasn't really sleeping much so i was sleep deprived because you only sleep like 20 minutes a half an hour because you're hearing noises and you're scared i was getting fucking stabbed i was too strong and big enemy to be raped or abused but i know people get spat on shat on peed on and people get stabbed so i was always on guard but after four days i thought i'm i'm losing my shit here i started to think have i get family because i've not got a phone i've no money like i'm i just can i'm a psychotic because i'd get like yeah i had dementia but then i get pictures and i can't be an m but and that was only for seven days on the streets but i started to kind of lose my bearings about not every time but i was that question and my own sanity see when you lost your shit did you know that you were losing it or did you just feel normal oh no when i i knew i didn't notice when i went when i gone the phone money but i did people saying well are you on a coke at the start when i was starting the main phase of the you're on the gear mate yeah you're like a hot cat on a hot tune roof am i yeah i am like sure yeah you know and i like threatened to lamp a few people in the pub for looking at me the wrong way which has never been me i've never been a an argument if so did you ever question though that could have been you and the other guy was on that yeah yeah you don't know do you not mean and even now before this happened i'd i would say were the longest fuse in history of the world now i'm an inch maximum literally it's taking lying i'm off the scale mad quick and i and i have to button myself back in again i have to why my neck in you know because i just think if i if it was the wrong person in front of me i when i when i when i felt like that i'd be going to jail what was it like try to take your own life awful but also weird because i thought well this is the end if i can manage to cut through my femoral artery i'm definitely gonna die and and the end of the torment i've had for two years will be gone and then i thought well what about your kids what would they say if they come in when they find you lying in bed in the polar blur or that wouldn't be very nice and like all them thoughts were around you and you're yes no yes no yes no and i think it takes a great deal of balls to actually go through the full act of suicide i don't think so i don't it's a cow's way i think it's a so balls are still finished yeah i'm the same like i believe everybody talks about mental health now and people struggling this and that i feel as if we can talk about it too much because it's still at an all-time high i've not the worst that's ever been um but i feel with mental health and suicide being vulnerable and sometimes fragile or weak or whatever people want to call it when they're not doing anything about it they just vegetating faster and um because a lot of people turn to drinking drugs and other stuff and that's the wrong thing because it'll make it a hundred times worse but like you say taking your life is the most bravest thing on the planet because that takes massive balls to know that you're never going to come back and once you don't once you do that there's no going back through your life there's no trying to rectify where it is you're struggling with and and that's the scary thing because everybody's got so much to give and if they could only just believe it just for that second to realize well wait a minute my life's not over i've got something to fucking give because people think it's over because our relationship i lost our job with a few grand a debt yeah fuck that there's fucking four million birds on the planet there's money being made anywhere listen you're at the bottom tier you're at the bottom you've not got fuck all but the only way is up yeah get your fucking ass to the gym i don't care if your fat as fuck skinny whatever it is just go exercise go on the stern master or walk around the park or whatever it is just try and get yourself out in nature yeah cut away the drink cut away the drugs fucking switch off your tv and my all means put down your phone because fuck me the social media side of things and people living in a fake world and electronical likes controls are there how many likes to get on my loved them are not on my hated fuck all that put down your phone get out in nature and then start realizing okay i can change get a piece of paper and write down your gold right yeah and things that you want to achieve that you want to stop and once it becomes clearer in your mind it's more likely to happen so like you say it is a brave thing to take your own life but at the end of the day we say it's okay it's okay not to be what is it what do they say it's okay not to be okay or yeah they do yeah so can it be okay yeah but it's not okay to live there can't live there we can't go okay it's okay listen be misery and pain for years and years no fucking do something about it fight back because everybody's got that understanding fewer lows to the lowest suicide or padded cell thought you never got out of it you're sitting here you're out of a book out yeah people can change yeah and that was one this i've written in the book there i said if if you're having a shit life blame yourself yeah i said you're not responsible what happens in your life but you are responsible how you deal with what happens well in person and you can take it one way or the other upwards or downwards that's a choice you personally make by your lack or willingness to act different what's your biggest life lesson that you've learned um biggest life lesson i think i think if biggest mistake i've made in my life biggest mistake was for my daughter because she was me in a skirt and still is me in a skirt she's my personality in a skirt she was going to join the police she had so much that i wanted us to do but we've fallen out and it's it's heartbreaking i absolutely miss her yeah if your daughter watches us by any chance what would you say to her i say ele we're a long time dead i think we should talk if it's not right for you where you are it's nothing to do with me if he's the right man fine if he's not fine i'd love to see you again soon yeah that's what it's all about and that because everything that we go through because we can go again it's that thing out we would block it out we go day by day and we think oh because it's always at the back yard mind i'm the same with my son there's always back and forth and i think oh fuck this it's just too much but it's still my son yeah if he calls me and now i'm there he's in trouble i'm there would he need i would die for my son yeah i would go to prison for my kids i would fucking i would kill for them that's not just to try and be a big man i just know what i've got to then go listen i don't mind i'd rather sit in a prison cell knowing that my kids are protected because every father should be protecting their kids you don't want to go down that route by all means never because we know how the destruction it causes but yeah it's your family and if they need to yeah everything it's scary because we do and i was a fuck up for years so i've only got myself to blame as well and to grow that bond at the start it's so important so try to clock back and clock back the missed opportunities and the missed years and the missed days and missing that it can be difficult for a father but you just got to stand your ground and just i would always be there for my kids no matter what families everything for me but listen like i say they're paying the nurses it's not difficult fights and arguments you think fuck off i'm never speaking to them again i'm like i'm the same i'm the same man she's i want it all when all my family's there i want to just go home and insert myself so i see all this shit it's like a contradiction i want all my family i do everything for them but when i'm with them i think these are all doing my fucking yeah i think my just talking shit and arguing and bickering and i'm thinking it's just stressful but these are the times that you wouldn't change because when i shot fucking you like you say we're a long time dead and i read something there that if people only see their parents once or twice a year and if they've only got maybe 10 to 20 a year left on this planet you're only going to see them another 10 or 20 times yeah and that fucking hit me man yeah hit me yeah um because i don't know why we're on this planet i believe there's a good source and people can be good there's so much listen you've seen a lot of bad in your life there's a lot of good goes on this absolutely look at people doing a homeless work and people in hospitals and nurses wiping asses and doing that sort of stuff and the people who just good souls who maybe i don't know whether they've been through trauma or not but they just want to help people they're good people they would never do a bad turn they would never steal but there is a lot of goodness look at the nature look at the mountains look at the sky the sun the moon the sea yeah there's so much beauty in the world but we just concentrate on the negatives i don't know if that's why the media berm barge went for years and the the tv and the radios it's just all negative shit when there's people out there doing charity work and saving children and help people become better and never gets noticed never because it doesn't sell i could have the most inspirational man on this planet nobody but he's asked but i've got yourself on undercover cop locked up in a fucking mental institute suicidal lost all these fucking females in his life to guys in turkey it's there how are you feeling now oh it's always good to talk isn't it i mean talk and that's the books the book was therapeutic yeah writing it down remembering it all you know it's it was a joy to write and i hope people buy it i mean i was doing the same thanks one there's a guy called andi i've only met since i met jane and he made me think i started it 10 years ago i never finished it and he made me he said look he said that's that's line of duty real not fiction line of duty real not fiction he said you should get that out there i went i tell andi i will and that's how i did it yeah but that's the podcast we'll give it a boost i'll be nice when you listen if you want to go another podcast i'm more than happy to put you on to people um great story unbelievable for what you've come from what you've overcome fucked up again now you're back um yeah let's say the best thing about being a police officer what was the best thing the best thing about being a police officer is for me was being helping people as well as locking them up and also even when i locked him up i still liked him yeah and i could and i don't think you'd find a guy who i locked up we would say he's the wrong one i didn't like him they all they all talked to me like i'm their mate even back they'd gone to jail and come back out again you know i mean they were still friends i think you've got that personality seeing you were in there meant just before we finished up seeing you were in the minute did you get questioned for like split personality or all that that you can play certain characters for that you can you could same as me and sit me across from a nun a priest a gangster a terrorist and i'll have them all laugh at me sometimes i think i'm psychotic this is one of my appellation tools the reason why my guests relax and open up is the sort of i'm your friend this and i am but it's to get the story to then make them relax but again it's it's it's like a chess movie yeah yeah it's like different characters different faces for different places ironically the people in the mental realm didn't believe i was the next undercover i was in the base of these fucking nuts could could you or potentially been in there as well as an undercover cop to get information for the mentally ill i'd down that the police has got the balls to put people inside custody to do that kind of stuff because it's such a rough environment and the dangers are so so high yeah i mean you don't have to be you don't i'll give you an example a guy i know um he killed somebody for stealing his three pound binotone radio i said you got 15 years on top for a three pound radio he goes rob it's not the radio it's not the money it's the principle if i let him take my radio he'll be back with others to take my ass and that's not happening so i killed him and that's what he said what were you thinking when you're in there with these people with because do you feel as if it was granted for you to be there especially when you're in with colors and terrorists and inside the mental institute oh no it was surreal it was out there was one guy who was a murderer he used to walk around around the square every day wouldn't talk to anybody i don't i'm not talking to anybody you're bound to be a snitch oh i used to fucking run after him catch him and i was saying how you're doing i used to be joking i need to get quick and clear i said what do we do is talk mate let's have a talk you know it's good to talk and by the end of the three months he was walking around with me talking yeah just me and him he doesn't speak to nobody how you feeling today after going through some of your journey good yeah i think you smashed that man i genuinely hope your book does well i'll leave the link in the description for people to get but just before we finish up for anybody that's in that struggle for anybody that doesn't think there's a way out maybe losing that loved one or their partner or their job maybe feeling like ending it like you've done what advice would you have for them don't do it because it eventually you can bring it around you can bring around with a bit of medical help as well a bit of some chemical help but definitely can bring it around and i'm having a great life now i'm having the best life i've ever had and the woman i'm with is the best woman i've ever had so you know don't give it up life life is a great gift keep it me money is real yeah um he's been in about over 20 years of Morocco one of the biggest taste and the UK i don't know if it's still the biggest um but what's your connection with you and me money well basically um it's a lot of me being explained squad but um lightning Lee Murray or Lee Murray's is known to his friends um he's by family sort of related to me in a very distant way and um all i'm saying is if there's any been out there lawyer wise or anybody with a shed load of money who thinks that it's time he's done his time he's the only guy on the raid who's still inside he's been in Morocco for 20 since 2006 i think you know 20 seven years or something you've got a 30 year stretch all the other boys are out give him a break and send him home to his family his kids need a dad and his partner needs a needs husband get him out please if you you know get him out contact James and let's get it sold thank you very much can um how's how is he still over is that because he's Moroccan they've kept him for that long how's can it not get uh um sent over the UK as they applied for i think i think there's been a lot of underhand stuff on that you know he shouldn't be there he shouldn't be there now all the boys are out by him it's ridiculous and i think there's a bit of a bit of government play here yeah it'd be great to get him out i'd love to see me as i know a few boys who know him and he was proper yeah yeah but yeah like i say he served his time hopefully he can get out and anybody yeah i know there's petitions and others i don't know if it's his sister or whatever it is somebody it's on instagram that's got petitions so anybody that's there go over sign the petition and try and push it to try and get him out but listen rob for coming on and telling your story i've thoroughly enjoyed it man listen it's been a pleasure yeah proud of you and anybody that's wanted by the book will leave a link in the description hopefully we can give it a good push for you um a lot of great stories in there i wish you nothing but the best for the future god bless you and stay out of turkey bro thank you