‘I want to make a better life for
Former prisoner opens up on the week that has changed his life.
It was after a heavy night of drinking in jail that Mark Cropp and his brother decided to tattoo his nickname on his face. Cropp and his brother, who shared a cell, had been enjoying a homebrewed concoction of apples, sugar and bread that had been fermenting for three weeks.
By the time the needle — or jail gun as it’s called — came out, the alcohol had well and truly kicked in.
“It was only supposed to cover up what was originally on my jawline. Once it was started, I thought, I can’t go back on it now.
“I wish I had stopped while the outline was there, to be quite honest.”
Cropp made international headlines this week after his public plea for work, saying the tattoo had scared off prospective employers.
After the New Zealand Herald met with Cropp on Wednesday he was instantly inundated with job offers and even an offer to remove his “DEVAST8” tattoo for free — which he gladly accepted.
Cropp’s plight has been divisive.
When his prison tattoo was scrawled on, drunk on homebrew, he was serving time for aggravated assault.
Now he says he’s a changed man. Despite that, his nickname “DEVAST8” stares back at him in the mirror, not allowing him to forget that night — or go unnoticed.
Cropp was sentenced to two years, three months in jail after he threatened a tourist with a knife over a botched drug deal. Sitting outside a small green cabin — which Work and Income allowed him and his partner, Taneia Ruki, 24, to live in for another week — he opens up about the night in Nelson back in 2015 that landed him behind bars.
“That day, I was wanting to score a tinny in order to feed my habit at the time. We had a friend that we were staying at . . . had a few drinks and they turned around and said, ‘If you can get some money to help with food we can give you one of the rooms’.
“That’s when I pulled a knife on a tourist when the deal went wrong.”
He says he was drunk and had tried cocaine for the first time. “I regret what I did, you know. “People shouldn’t have to come to New Zealand and have that put upon them. I apologised 100 per cent and asked for restorative justice. If I could turn back time, I would.”
His partner was eight months pregnant when he was jailed. “I was quite angry at myself because I said I wouldn’t let her do it alone. And I pretty much failed.
“I didn’t want my daughter to have the same upbringing that I did.”
Tattooing became an addictive pastime for Cropp in jail. He went in with just four of them.
Sticking his hand inside a chip packet he pulls out his jail gun, which he says is made from two pens and a CD motor.
“The needle [is] made out of a pen
I regret what I did, you know. If I could turn back time, I would.