‘I was eight when I first started robbing from shops’

FOR 28-year-old Jason Morris, crime is all he has ever known. Aged just eight, he started stealing. By nine, he was taking drugs. By 12, he was in prison.

Now one of his latest dealings have been captured as part of a BBC documentary following South Wales Police.

Valley Cops, on BBC One, follows officers dealing with criminals – and the stories behind their lives.

In the first show, which was shown last night, Morris was featured along with accomplices Liam Williams and Daniel Jones after the trio robbed a post office earlier this year.

The knife-wielding hooded gang ransacked the safe at Rhydyfelin Post Office in Pontypridd run by three elderly women on February 7, taking off with more than £17,000 and leaving the 74-year-old postmistress in shock – and all in under 20 seconds. The show followed the trio, from officers looking for suspects, finding evidence and interviewing witnesses.

Morris was charged after he was police trawled CCTV and found him wearing the same clothes in a supermarket on the morning of the robbery.

After being arrested, Morris talked about his previous time spent behind bars from his cell at Merthyr Tydfil Police Station.

“I was eight when I first started robbing from shops and stuff, and smoking dope by nine, pinching cars by 10 or 11,” he said.

“I’ve probably spent more time in jail than most of my life out, well adult life, so it doesn’t really faze me that much. In there it’s probably like another family really ‘cause I’m so used to it.”

Morris, of Maes Ganol, Rhydyfelin, was jailed for four years and six months for the robbery. Accomplice Daniel ‘Jones, of Heol Twyn Du, Merthyr Tydfil, was given six years for the robbery and burglary offences.

But for the third accomplice, Liam Williams, 25, of Penylan Road, Varteg, Pontypool, the incident had come at a bad time.

Expecting his first child with partner Sophie, he was worried a spell behind bars could see him missing his daughter’s birth. Like Morris, Williams had been to first been locked up from a young age.

“I’ve been in a police cell more times than I’ve been in my own bedroom,” he said.

“I’ve spent easy six years of my life in prison.”

But since meeting Sophie, he had hoped his life would change.

“I should be spending more time with my partner. When I first got with her, I didn’t even know who she was, I didn’t know she existed.

“We just met each other and fell in love straight away. People say true love at first sight doesn’t exist – it does. Trust me.”

But after being caught on CCTV ‘checking out’ the shop before the robbery and then captured leaving in the getaway car, a Black Volkswagon Golf, Williams was charged with robbery.

Valley Cops continues next Thursday on BBC One at 9pm.