‘I left my criminal life behind to help others do likewise’
ABRISTOL man who spent nearly half his life behind bars is now using his turbulent past to prevent others from turning to a life of crime.
Paul Simmons now warns others about the dangers of substance abuse and breaking the law on TikTok, where he has gained a large following.
The 44-year-old was brought up in Lockleaze with his mum and stepfather and he says during his early years was exposed to domestic abuse before being taken from his family home at age nine and placed into a residential boarding school.
It was there he said he fell victim to abuse himself until he left at 16 with his GSCEs.
The Bristol-born father of two, who now lives in Swindon, said he was “unwilling” to return to his family home after coming out of the social care setting and voluntarily made himself homeless in Bristol.
He found himself living close to the city centre where he would squat inside a St Paul’s flat, and begged for cash in the then infamous Bearpit.
His life really began to spiral when he was introduced to heroin and crack cocaine while inside a Gloucestershire hostel in his late teens.
“I had never taken it before but I was a messed-up kid who didn’t understand what was going on inside my head. I went crazy over it,” he added.
He said the years that followed saw him commit a string of offences including robbery and he was sentenced to two years inside a young offenders’ institution in Portland, Dorset.
He said once he was released he fell back into a life of crime and substance abuse through the late 90s and early 2000s.
“I went from begging on the street to having an imitation firearm threatening people,” he added.
In 2004 Mr Simmons was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for robbery, attempted robbery, GBH, ABH, kidnap and firearms offences, in a case that was reported on the front page of the Post at the time. Following his release, he stayed in a hostel in Weymouth for 10 months before returning to his criminal ways which resulted in a nine-and-a-half-year extended sentence of which he served seven due to recalls by probation.
He said in the years that followed he fell in love with his partner Zasha Mcgregor but found it hard to quit his drug addiction, and unfortunately landed back inside the prison system.
“Even when my head was crazy when I was using, I knew I wanted to get myself sorted,” he added.
While at HMP Dartmoor he gained a degree in health and social care from the Open University after being helped by the prison education trust.
He said his self-recovery stemmed from his ability to avoid substance abuse. He said following the prison 12-step programme “never worked for him”. But in 2019 he said his partner gave him an ultimatum to either change his ways or leave.
Mr Simmons is no stranger to sleeping rough on the streets and living in car parks but said “being faced with losing everything” he had worked so hard for was not worth it and he knew what he had to do to break the cycle. Mr Simmons now has an NCFE level 2 award in mentoring and for the last three years, he has been on a mission to share his story of redemption with others to “show that the worst of addicts can do a complete turnaround and make a positive impact”.