After you have read this I do not ask for your sympathy or your forgiveness for my past. I only ask to be treated in a fair and just manner. I do not want much, just the chance to go home and build a life for myself.

As far as I can remember, my up bringing was not an un-happy one. There were six of us, two girls and four boys, we were a poor family and had little stability but my mother loved us and we were never ill treated, I cannot find anything in my past to say otherwise. In the early 70’s, my mother was in a car crash in which she was seriously injured and spent about a year in hospital recovering. While she was in hospital my brothers and I where placed in a care home in Derbyshire with two old lady’s. It was a nice place, and I cried when it was time for us to go home. Not because I did not want to go home but because I had liked living with them, I had my first girlfriend and my first taste of bread pudding, I also remember going to the Saturday morning matinee and the fun that it was. When my mother was out of hospital life went back to normal, we lived in Moss Side Manchester in

Wellington Street

, and I went to

Princess Road

junior school. It was a multi racial school and it was a happy environment, all us kids got on with each other and I cannot remember seeing any fights between the pupils. It was when I moved to secondary school that I started to become a loner and introverted.