Waarvoor ging hij eigenlijk de bajes in?
Hierom blijkbaar:
THE NIGHT THAT LED TO A DETENTION CENTRE:
We [me and my mates] were just skinheads, it wasn't really a gang. At that time you were either a punk, a skinhead or a mod or you weren't on the scene and me and my mates were skinheads and were into that fashion and that music.
We were just a group of kids that came together. I didn't have my dad there and I had another mate who didn't have his father and you kind of form your own little family and that's what gangs are, that's why you have so many gangs now because there are so many kids without fathers that they seek their own male bonding.
I really should never have been in there [detention centre]. In 1981, there were a lot of riots all over the country, Brixton, Handsworth inBirmingham, and they spread to the centre of Birmingham.
And we were not involved in that at all but were travelling from one side of Birmingham to the other to go to a party and this one Saturday night, coincidentally, was the day of heavy rioting and all the windows of shops were smashed in and stuff.
So there we were, walking through the centre at about 11pm at night trying to catch the night bus to go to this party and my mate saw this gentleman outfitters, I remember it was called Dunn's.
It was kind of like posh clothing, nothing we would even be interested in but he [my mate] just thought it would be a good idea to get some of the clothes off of this dummy and go to the party dressed in these nerdy clothes.
So being in a drunken state he thought this might be funny so he grabbed one of the mannequins but the whole thing fell down and the whole plate glass that was left fell on to the floor making a big crash.
Within about 30 seconds there were like 20 coppers on top of us because obviously they were patrolling round the city looking for looters and rioters. So we got picked up and labelled in that category.
It was a policy of the courts and the government that basically anyone they picked up that night was getting six months. We spent three or four horrible days locked up in a police station because they didn't have any cells to send anyone anywhere, so me and my mate were stuck in a single cell with a bucket to **** and **** in for three days and no shower.
Then off to the detention centre. I actually got my sentence halved. I went back to court and appealed and I think it was pretty obvious that I didn't really deserve to be there.
Maybe I would have ended up there for doing something else, for getting in a fight or something I don't know, but the fact is I was there and I came to the realisation of where my future should be.