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Gary Whittaker takes questions from pupils at Hampstead School |
Straight talking on drugs from ex-con
Man who served 11 years behind bars tells pupils how youthful experimenting led to prison
THE room fell silent when ex-convict Gary Whittaker began a hardhitting talk about life in prison to a group of Year 7 students at a West Hampstead school.
Just minutes earlier, the giggling 11 and 12-year-olds from Hampstead School had cheekily quizzed Mr Whittaker and Detective Sergeant Joe Lumley as they sat at the front of the classroom waiting to start.
But their bravado was soon put into check when Mr Whittaker, 34, began recounting the horrors of the jailhouse and what had led to him imprisoned: drugs.
DS Lumley told the class he was “inspired” by the way Mr Whittaker, from Somers Town, had turned his life around after 11 years in prison.
Once notoriously known to police as one of the most prolific burglars in London, he went to prison in 1998 and got out two years ago.
Now a reformed man with a seven-week-old baby, he was keen to highlight the errors of his ways.
“I was your age when I first started smoking cannabis,” he said, before explaining how “little puffs of weed” became a one-way street to harder drugs, crime, and ultimately time.
“Imagine sitting in a 7ft room with a stranger and you’re eating your dinner and someone is doing a poo right there,” he said. “I’ve spent 11 years in prison. I’ve spent around £1 million on drugs.
“When I broke into people’s homes I caused nothing but misery.
“It’s down to drugs – that’s what makes people do these horrific things.”
The pupils, given the talk as part of a national drive to improve understanding about the dangers of drugs, were keen to learn.
“Do they spit in your food?” asked Paul Oyewo, 12. “No, but prison food is rough. I lost so much weight in prison,” replied Mr Whittaker.
“Is the bed like stone?” Luke Parsons-Murphy, also 12, wanted to know. Apparently not, but the prison clothes are none too fancy.
Mr Whittaker said: “There’s a good road and a bad road.
“If you take the bad road you’ll end up with Joe and the Metropolitan police and they’ll drive you mad.
“If you take the good road you get your freedom.”
Teacher Michelle Chalibamba, who organised Hampstead’s week-long drugs awareness event – the only school in the borough to do so – said she felt positive about its impact.
“We’re not saying don’t do [drugs]. It’s unrealistic – in a school of 1,300 some of them will,” she said.
“But we’ve given them the facts.
“We’re showing them if you do things there are consequences.
“I don’t know if I’ve changed their attitudes, but I would have made them think and that’s my job as an educator.” |
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