I started building a fresh life, then things started going wrong...

An interview with Kieran

Interviewed by Sharon and Marie-Clare

At the time of interview, Kieran was serving a prison sentence.

I was born in Bolton...in 1987...I've been in this prison for a year...It were a process of things, you know, what ended up me in this situation. I mean, I got out of prison last time and I decided I was going to change my ways. Ended up moving away from the people who, you know, who got me in trouble, and separated myself and started building a fresh life. And did well for six months, then things started going wrong. I gave in, you know; I lost the place where I were living, made a few enemies so started living on the street. And, to get by, I hire-purchased a lot of goods and didn't pay for them, sold them. And then I was hanging around this person as well at the time and we were just living on the streets of Manchester, off hotels because we had lots of money from the goods that we'd hire-purchased and sold. And then we were running low on money; we were in a bar one day and, um...I'm ashamed of the crime obviously, it's not a nice thing what I did at all [describes a violent crime for which he is currently serving his sentence]...
I got three and half years and then I also got six months added on for the crime that I didn't even commit (laughs). No, if I would have done the crime I would have admitted it you know and... but why risk getting...if you don't admit it, you can get extra sentence, you know, for wasting time. So, basically, someone said that I'd, um, threw him on the floor, my friend pulled out a knife and we robbed his phone. But I borrowed the guy's phone and didn't come back with it. So we would have got done for more serious charge, just got six month added on. So, in total, I got four years. Been in 18 month and I've got six months left.
Prison, it's, you know, it's...not hard to deal with, you know. A lot of people say it's like a hotel. It's like a boarding school where you can't leave, but there's nothing you can do you know. If you let it get to you then you aren't going to get out. You know, you can't speed up the process of getting out you have to, no matter what, you just have to get on with it until you get out. Because otherwise it's just going to bring you down.
There's, um, education, you know; you can different sorts of courses, painting, decorating, music, cooking, you know. English, maths, if you can't read or write, things like that. Um, you can go to the gym, there's, um, you know, you get an hour every other night to get a phone call or a shower, just little things. You can write, ring home, write letters.
TV, that's the only thing really, you know. TV, gym, go in education, you know, that's all there is to look forward to; maybe a visit, when you get a visit. My auntie works a lot but she tries to come once a month or summat like that.