Hx4353 was my first prison number.

The feeling consumed me, it was like sitting on cotton wool, on a bubble. When nothing and nobody can get to me.  I was like wow; this is good stuff. This is magic. You know before all the consequences and the hurt. It felt much nicer to be out of my head on heroin than it did to deal with the world.

When people used to say to me what do you want to be when you grow up, I’d say a lorry driver because that’s what my stepdad did. But really, my real ambition was to be a gangster. I was tired of being a victim.