Paul Walmsley

Location: Preston | UK

My name is Paul Walmsley and between 2006 and 2011, I was ‘Britain's Most Wanted’ - spending five years on the run from the police on European shores. Acknowledging the certainty of a lengthy spell in prison, I handed myself in to the Police in 2011 and was sentenced to 10 years for a drugs conspiracy.

Whilst in custody, I deliberately separated myself from the criminal element which had been my life for over 25 years, decided to engage in education and went on to become what HMP Service described as a ‘model prisoner’.

I was awarded numerous accolades for creative writing and my (as yet, unpublished) book; Extra Time With Penalties is a Koestler Trust, double-award winning piece which gained me a writing scholarship. 

I am now a qualified life coach, humanistic counsellor and NLP practitioner and spent the latter end of my sentence in the community on day release from a Category D (open) prison. I completed my teacher training, went on became a tutor in a professional sports academy and was finally released on license into the community in July 2016. 

Lecturing about the desistance theory (To desist from criminal behaviours by using educational creativity, the arts and music) in Universities across the north-west, I regularly participate in intervention projects in the Merseyside area to help and guide young people.

Volunteering in a wide range of activities within the community, I help the families of prisoners come to terms with the realities of what incarceration brings.

Knowing what I know now and given the chance, I would have done things differently in my youth. But my past has shaped me into the man I am today and I believe my wisdom, background, values and newly-found freedom have shaped me into a person who can now contribute to society in ways I never thought possible.

The new chapter has just begun and I live my life in my imagination and not in my past.