Your Honour Can I Tell You My Story?

Andi Brierley

Description

The challenging story of a young person's progress through care, prison and social rejection to youth justice specialist.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Waterside Press
• Date de parution: 17 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910979716
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Your Honour Can I Tell You My Story?
Andi Brierley
With a Foreword by Jim Hopkinson
Copyright and publication details
Your Honour – Can I Tell You My Story?
Andi Brierley
ISBN 978-1-909976-64-1 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-910979-71-6 (Epub ebook)
ISBN 978-1-910979-72-3 (Adobe ebook)
Copyright © 2019 This work is the copyright of Andi Brierley. All intellectual property and associated rights are hereby asserted and reserved by the authors in full compliance with UK, European and international law. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, including in hard copy or via the internet, without the prior written permission of the publishers to whom all such rights have been assigned worldwide.
Cover design © 2019 Waterside Press by www.gibgob.com
Printed and bound in Poland by BookPress.eu
Main UK distributor Gardners Books, 1 Whittle Drive, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN23 6QH . Tel: [phone]; [e-mail] ; www.gardners.com
North American distribution Ingram Book Company, One Ingram Blvd, La Vergne, TN 37086, USA. Tel: [phone]; [e-mail]
Cataloguing-In-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.
Ebook Your Honour – Can I Tell You My Story? is available as an ebook and also to subscribers of Ebrary, Ebsco, Myilibrary and Dawsonera.
Published 2019 by
Waterside Press Ltd.
The Manor House, Lutyens Close, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG24 8AG.
Online catalogue WatersidePress.co.uk
Table of Contents
Publisher’s Note iv
Acknowledgements v
About the author vi
The author of the Foreword vi
Foreword vii
Introduction ix Who Am I? 11 Party Time 23 Shunted Back and Forth 29 Bilston 39 A Life of Crime 45 The Drugs Chain 53 Grafting 69 A Taste of Custody 83 Cyclops and Other Fine Friends 105 Harehills 113 Work and an Evening at Elland Road 119 Doncaster 131 Deerbolt 139 Clubbing the Night Away 145 Addiction 157 Here We Go Again! 179 Sportsperson 191 Release 199 Youth Justice Volunteer 213 Golden Opportunity 219 The Professionals 229 ‘Me, promotion?’ 243 Back to My Youth Justice Roots 247
Postscript 253
Publisher’s Note
The views and opinions in this work are those of the author entirely and not necessarily shared. Readers should draw their own conclusions about any facts, opinions or claims it contains, concerning which the possibility of other narratives or interpretations should be borne in mind. The storyline and names of individuals together with some place names have been altered to respect privacy. Parts of the book, which seeks to portray the author’s transition, are for legal reasons fiction. Details or descriptions should not be taken to bear any resemblance to actual events or individuals, past, present, living or dead.
Acknowledgements
Many people have contributed to this book, wittingly or not, including those who helped me on my journey from prisoner to law-abiding citizen. For their support and encouragement I will always be grateful.
In particular I would like to thank all those who had faith in me even if I may have taken a while to appreciate that although some things may have been due to my own efforts a great deal was due to them. Mine wasn’t and isn’t the only point of view I would like them to know!
Special thanks are due to: Mark Atherton, Lorraine Hopton, Phil Kent, Sarah Flanagan, Mandy Foster, Dave and Jackie Norton, Gill Garvani, Daniel Orive, Denis Lewis, Katie Wrench, Gail Faulkiner, Gary Collins, Alice Holmes, Emmal Lemdani, Steve Woodhead, Phil Robbins, Martyn Stenton, Duncan McBurney, Hollie Holdsworth, Thomas Hart, Joel Hannah, Sagir Gulzar, Jenny Bright, Rebecca Gilmour, Trevor Woodhouse, Sonia Brierley, Tina Brierley and Jim Hopkinson who kindly wrote the Foreword.
To those who shared darker days thank you from where I am now.
Finally, thanks to my wife Tami for her support. Maybe the book will help her to understand an Andi that she doesn’t even recognise.
Andi Brierley
March 2019
About the author
Andi (Andrew) Brierley grew-up mainly in and around Leeds, West Yorkshire where he is a Children Looked After/Care Leaver Specialist within Leeds Youth Offending Service. He also spent time in the Midlands.
The author of the Foreword
Jim Hopkinson completed an MSc in Applied Social Studies at Oxford University, and became a qualified social worker. He then worked as a probation officer obtaining an MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Loughborough University. Jim then moved to become a manager of a voluntary organization working with school excluded pupils. He joined Leicester Youth Offending Team at its inception in 1999 and became Head of Leeds Youth Offending Service in 2003. Since 2016 he has been Deputy Director of Children’s Services in Bradford.
Foreword
‘Never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes…’
I can still recall the day when, as Head of Leeds Youth Offending Service, I was asked to authorise the employment of Andi Brierley. It was not an easy decision to make. As a service dedicated to preventing, reducing and stopping offending we describe getting and sustaining employment as a critical protective factor. Every day youth justice staff make the case for giving young people who have offended a chance in education, training and employment. But a record like Andi’s? Persistent offending. Prolific offending. Breaches of orders designed to stop offending. Several prison sentences. Could this leopard ever change its spots?
I recall taking advice from HR and others. The clear message was this is a risk — a big risk and if you take this risk Jim you are accountable for your decision. How many people would line up to say ‘I told you so’ if it went wrong. We often talk about a ‘risk averse culture’ in children’s services. Children’s staff are said to err on the side of caution and take risk averse decisions. But surely if I took the decision not to employ Andi I could not be accused of being risk averse with his track record?
So what swung it? Yes there was the advocacy of Wilfred who made the case for Andi to be employed — but fundamentally what swung it was the grit and determination shown by Andi himself.
Andi told me a bit about his story — but it is only on reading this book that I have fully understood just how remarkable his journey has been. A childhood surrounded by instability, numerous moves, disrupted education with adults who were it seems not consistently able to prioritise the needs of their children above their own. No wonder the escape offered by drugs became more and more central to Andi’s teenage life. With drugs, offending inevitably followed and the full sanction of the criminal justice system followed close behind.
Yet this is an inspirational journey. The journey of someone who had walked through storms to reach the sunshine. Someone who has reflected deeply and developed huge insight coupled with the bravery to share his story with us. A person who packed more into his childhood years than most of us will experience in a lifetime. A person who has come to terms with his experiences and used these to become a force for change and for good.
This moving story reminds us that everyone has the capacity to change and deserves some time in the sun.
Introduction
People have various opinions about why children offend and what to do about it. I’m in a privileged position to explore this and in a unique way. My book looks at the trauma I experienced as a developing child and lets the reader decide whether it is linked to the decisions and choices I made as a young adult that led to prison.
I’ve served custodial sentences making-up three-and-a-half years of my young adult life, been addicted to heroin, spent time in the care system and on probation and grown-up with crime and drugs all about me. However, regardless of these experiences, I’ve found myself working as a professional with children that offend. How does someone overcome their past and retune the brain in this way? This is what my story is about.
I explore the impact of being in prison although as I will explain I never saw myself as a ‘criminal’. It’s not a story of glamour or money, rather of escaping from trauma, poverty and other negative experiences. Instead of making a case for welfare or justice for children that offend, I think it best to simply share my experiences as if by way of explanation to a judge sentencing me. You will see in the story that in my professional role I twice found myself presenting reports on children to such a judge having changed so much that they didn’t recognise me (though I think one of them may have looked puzzled)! But it is also important that I tell the story in a basic and straightforward way that everyone can understand.
I invite the reader to join me on this journey as I try to unpick the nature versus nurture debate in a practical way. It is the story of my progress through care, prison and social rejection to senior youth justice worker and I hope that it contains at least some clues for those who work with young people. It begins with failures to recognise and make connections about the impact of my chaotic early life being moved from place to place, school to school, fragmented parenting and poor role models. Encircled by the criminality of others, hard and soft drugs, violence and confusing adult examples, I ended up first in a young offender institution then in gaol. There I learned how to be, act and think like prisoners do, for my own safety and survival, something that only made matters worse when I was trying to re-adapt to the world outside after being released.
Caught in a downward spiral, hooked on drugs and partying a priority I was not strong enough to resist negative influences. My well-being deteriorated and my self-confidence was at an all time low. I try to show how, in the middle of all this, quite small things made a big di