Rogue’s gallery
Armed robber used painting to turn his life around in jail
A NOTORIOUS armed robber has transformed his life to become an artist after hitting rock bottom during a nine-year sentence.
Jamie Baird turned his life of drug-fuelled gangland madness around inside jail after almost dying from an overdose.
He will now stage an exhibition of paintings finished after he broke free from addiction.
The turnaround came after a period in segregation in tough Shotts prison in 2020, when he realised he could die behind bars or start to live a meaningful life outside.
The show at East Kilbride Art Centre will be staged a stone’s throw from a bookie’s robbed by Baird five years ago on a five-day crime spree.
His story mirrors that of gang murderer Jimmy Boyle, who became a famous sculptor after his violent and rebellious time in Barlinnie in the 1970s.
Baird, 36, said his path to getting drug-free was enabled by some of Scotland’s most feared gang leaders, who respected that he wanted to change his life.
He said: “I had a life of madness, just chaos that was fuelled with drink and drugs and committing crimes.
“I was the kind of guy who’d be up for all the stupid anti-social behaviour and I had a lot of violence in my life, which I feel nothing but regret for.
“But I have turned it around forever. I’m sure of that. My exhibition will mark a huge step forward for me and people can hopefully see a lot of sincerity in my work.”
Baird was jailed in 2019 for five robberies in Lanarkshire in a booze and STYLE drugs bender.
At the time, he was running a barber business in Drumchapel, Glasgow, and making up to £1000 a week. He said: “When I was full of booze and Valium, I would agree to do anything. I didn’t care.
“I got a big sentence for the robberies but I deserved it and if I didn’t get the jail time, I’d possibly be dead now.”
Judge Lord Clark described the robberies, where Baird wielded a replica gun, as “terrifying”.
Baird said: “I was disconnected from reality. I knew all the
wrong people and life was a cycle of benders and crimes.
“Looking back, it seems really insane, like looking at the life of another person. But I was like that from an early age too. At school, I was basically so unruly I was unteachable and nothing would get through to me.
“I had one decade of madness after another and I can’t offer any explanation or excuse for it.”
Before being jailed at the High Court in Glasgow, Baird had spent a year in Marbella, where he thought he could escape the drugs, crime and violence. He said: “I don’t know what I was thinking about. I soon got into the party scene and into all sorts of scrapes. It was the same old stuff, with booze, cocaine and Valium – anything that got me out of my nut.
“I got myself a job with a barber, a guy who spoke fluent Spanish and knew everyone.
“He got on with everyone and, in Marbella, that meant you would be hanging around with some heavy duty international gangsters – people who were fine with me but not so nice to anyone who messed with them.
We were rocking up to places like the Ocean Club and walking right through the queue, then not spending a penny inside.
“It was surreal and, all the time, I was out of control with the drink and coke.”
After returning to Scotland and getting quickly drawn back into crime, Baird soon found himself in Barlinnie before being moved to Shotts. The jail is known in gangland circles as the “Lyons den” as it’s “run” by the notorious Glasgow crime gang.
He said: “Shotts is a heavy duty place, with most guys serving long sentences, and the place is riddled with drugs.
“If it was hard to get clean outside, it’s 10 times harder inside because there’s nothing to do, everyone else is doing it and people are stuck inside with the same demons that were hounding them on the outside.”
After an epiphany in segregation at the jail – where he adopted an ice-cold resolve to get clean – Baird started seeing the madness of jail life.
He said: “I would see stuff happening on a weekly basis – slashings and stabbings. By this time, etizolam and spice were rife in the jail, people were properly out of their heads.
“I watched a guy walk past me one day with blood streaming down his face. He’d had his ears chopped off and he went to a guard and just said he needed to see a nurse.
“Seeing all this with a clear head, I was aware how easily I could have been at the heart of all the crazy stuff.”
Baird discovered a talent for art after seeing a fellow prisoner carry a canvas to his cell and he soon got supplies to paint. He said: “I got into it. It cleared my head. I had guys in the jail offering to buy them but I wanted to keep them.
“People will be able to come and see the paintings I did in my cell, which include stuff from when I was locked up for 23 hours a day. It’s a proper story of confinement and transformation and it refers to me getting a second chance in life, which I mean to make the most of.” ●Jamie Baird’s exhibition runs from April 4 until the end of the month at East Kilbride Arts Centre.