00:00 and you've got a criminal record that's thicker than a yellow pages and it's all for the same thing
00:05 shoplifting, shoplifting, shoplifting. You never think there's anything more to your life
00:10 but the fact of the matter is there is an opportunity there for you.
00:14 A typical day of shoplifting would include planning my destination the day before,
00:19 getting up early, getting on the motorway, getting to our location and then typing around Birmingham.
00:27 We would try to avoid the heavily deprived areas because they're more than likely being hit hard
00:32 by shoplifting as well and there wouldn't be much on the shop floors.
00:35 We would look for the nice suburban areas in and around Birmingham
00:39 and then what we would do is work our way back down to Cardiff,
00:43 hitting every valley, village, town, whatever we could until the car was full.
00:48 As soon as we get home we'd ring up some of our contacts who would buy in bulk and sell it all.
00:53 As soon as I've sold it I'm going straight to my drug dealer, I'm locking up in a flat
00:58 and I'm starting all over again in the morning.
01:00 I turned it around because I stopped taking drugs, it's as simple as that.
01:03 During 2020 lockdown I got rushed to hospital, thought I was going to die.
01:08 For the first time ever I genuinely wanted to change, I thought I cannot go on like this anymore.
01:14 I didn't have another prison sentence in me and I certainly didn't have another heroin rattle within me.
01:19 Yeah, it's never too late to change and I know that's very cliche and easy to say
01:24 coming from someone who is on the other side but I never ever thought I'd be on this side.
01:29 Services and people in the drug sector are looking for people with lived experience more than ever.
01:35 So yeah, it's never too late and do you really want to be nicking meat and Cathedral City for the rest of your life?
01:42 Going in and out of prison for it?
01:44 I know it's easy money but it's really, really not the way to live.
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