Classroom lesson on crime

FORMER gangland criminal and East End hard man John Pridmore paid a visit to Galway Community College during the week to talk to students about how he turned his back on crime and found Jesus in his life.Now a preacher, he kept all fascinated and spellbound as he told his story of how his parent’s divorce acted as a catalyst that sent him off the rails. His mother suffered a nervous breakdown, and his father’s second wife would beat him on regular occasions.Turning to a life of crime to fill the void left in his life, he found himself in a detention centre at the age of fifteen, and in prison for violent crimes by the age of nineteen.He even contemplated taking his own life on one occasion. Working as a bouncer in London’s East End didn’t help, he was being paid for fighting – the only thing he was good at. He eventually graduated from doorman to organised crime, and found himself in the middle of drug deals and protection rackets. “I met some guys who seemed to have everything and I started to work for them. Before long I found myself working with them instead of for them. These were the guys who...