I was a bit lost.
I wanted to turn my life around.
I knew I didn't want that life anymore.
I wanted to get out of prison.
John has a mad story.
I met John at an event I went to for young people.
Ian Wright was there but John McAvoy was one that low-key the kids are getting
the most excited about.
They were like 'ah have you heard his story'?
At 16 years old I bought a sawn-off shotgun off a 40-year-old man in a car park
in Dulwich.
So John grew up influenced heavily by the men around him who were
involved as criminal networks.
He ended up being arrested, getting convicted for armed robbery
and going to prison.
He went Belmarsh, but not just to Belmarsh.
He went to the prison within the prison where they keep high-risk prisoners
like Abu Hamza, which ... I only know about that
because of the Ross Kemp documentary.
I don't think I could do and hour in here without going around the twist.
So there were two key events which led to John
completely turning his life around.
One of them was the death of his friend Aaron.
So whilst he was in prison, his friend Aaron was committing a crime,
there was car accident and he passed away.
And the second thing that happened was he started rowing in the prison gym.
He met a guy called Darren who was a prison guard working in the gym
who encouraged him massively in kind of pursuing higher goals,
even to breaking world records like the longest distance rowed in 24 hours
and he did that whilst in prison.
He broke that world record.
Since leaving prison, he's decided to take on ironmen challenges
which involves intense running, cycling and swimming,
but its also led to him advising government policy,
talking about prison reform and going out to speak to young people,
talking to them about his story,
trying to teach them that there are different opportunities out there and
that they have to claim ownership of their own story.
No matter how bad things get, don't ever quit.
Loads of these themes link in to the things that our audience
have asked us to speak about around masculinity, from role models, to prison,
to mental health and mentality.
So I decided to go meet him at the London rowing club in Putney
because that's where he went the day after he was released from prison
So this is the rostrum of all the athletes that have been
to the Olympics and World Championships that have rowed at this club.
There's about a hundred.
– And you come here everyday? – Everyday.
Seven days a week, normally.
Have you ever been to a rowing club before?
A rowing club? I have done it actually.
– Oh you have? – I have.
And here's the gym.
And what made you come to decide to row?
When you're in prison, everyone gets three gym sessions per week.
There was a guy and he was rowing a million meters for charity.
And he said to me,
If you say to the prison officers that you want a row for charity,
they let you come down here as much as you want.
And it gave me clearance to leave the wing to come down the gym
seven days a week.
The first session I've ever done, I rowed 32,000 metres, which was 20 miles
and I just remember looking at the monitor, these numbers were in front of me
and everyone left me alone.
I could have been anywhere in the world.
This was my form of escapism and being able to get out of that place mentally
even though I was trapped in it physically.
And then I rowed 3 million metres in three months
and then a prisoner said to me,
'You do realise, if you row five million metres, that's equivalent to rowing across the Atlantic'.
And I thought, that's quite a cool thing to say I've done
on the rowing machine.
And it was then Darren Davis, the prison officer,
he looked at the monitor and went, 'That is so fast'.
And then he planted a seed in my head.
I was 26 years-old at this point and I had never had a man,
a male in my life that had no vested interest.
Every person I had ever been around, I looked up to,
there was always an agenda.
So they weren't looking at you and what would be good for you.
It was what was good for them,
so it was the fact that I could make them money,
I could do stuff that would make them financially better off.
And nearly all of them was all involved in criminality,
and a negative way of living a lifestyle, basically.
Is there a way that you're comfortable to say to say what kind of things
that that would be?
I remember being in Crystal Palace and watching a film
and the film was made about my uncle and my uncle committed the biggest
armed robbery in the world and he stole £26 million worth of gold bullion.
Let's go.
My uncle was in prison for 26 years for that offence.
I didn't see that as a kid I saw him sitting on £26 million worth of gold bullion
in a Hollywood film.
When you've got those sorts of people telling a young boy
that system is corrupt, the government is corrupt, politicians are corrupt,
the banks are corrupt, and then you see a corrupt system and it's like
I'm not going to be a victim of that system,
it 100% started affecting my psychology.
It''s so profound and powerful when you say that because when you feel
like there's a sense of corruption in the system, there's not many people who are
out there offering options to them and opportunities and what you just say,
it just hits the nail on the head for so many examples
of so many people I've spoken to.
I might mention that upstairs we could probably continue the conversation.
Growing up, who were your main influences?
The one I would say was the key to the door was my mum's ex-husband Billy.
He just finished serving 16 years for armed robbery.
One day me and my stepdad was in a car I was 12 years old.
We were driving through Bromley and he said to me, 'look out the window'.
And I looked out and I said, 'what?'
And he went, 'see all these people? They're all sheep'.
And I said, 'what do you mean?' and he said, 'they're all sheep'.
And he basically was saying, they go to work every day, they pay taxes
and they're slaves to the system.
I couldn't fathom how someone would get up and go to work every day
and give the government 40% of their wages and salaries.
I couldn't fathom it.
It does always come back, I think, a lot of this stuff, down to childhood.
If you plant a seed in poisonous soil, trees not going to grow.
What were you like back then, compared to how you are now?
I imagine you being a little bit cocky.
I really, really wasn't. I really wasn't.
I didn't want to grow up and be a gangster it wasn't ... It didn't motivate me.
I just wanted to be successful.
I wanted to have money.
it's interesting when you say that though.
When you say to me, 'I just want it to be successful', that is what so many men
I speak to say and I think it's really hard for people to find their place
in a world where there's not a lot of people reaching out.
It was a very hyper masculine, alpha male environment.
It was literally, you show no weakness.
You do not break, you do not relent.
Darren very kindly came down from Nottingham at very short notice
to be part of this interview.
I just felt it was like really important to speak to him
because it was that friendship and relationship
that developed between John and Darren, which ultimately led to John
being able to turn his life around.
That was through Darren encouraging him,
not just on a sporting level but also a personal level.
That trust between them was something that definitely
John attributes to, you know, massively changing the trajectory of his life.
I guess I just want from your perspective how you met each other,
what your first impressions were.
You have to understand this: Darren was my enemy.
For someone like me that was involved in that level crime,
around those sorts of criminals to suddenly then
start having relationships with a prison officer,
people would have classed me as an informer, a grass, I was broken,
the system had broken me.
Once you do that, you don't go back.
Were you also very aware of that being the context?
I'm aware of the position that I'm in as a prison officer but I don't see any harm
in me spending time with John and talking about some of my experiences.
It's like something within me saying that he's got something,
he can change his life, he can use this.
What was motivating you?
it's just the way I am, you know, it's the way my mum and dad
brought me up, you know, is to support others
and see potential in others and everybody's got the same ability
to change, it's giving people time and be positive to them
and saying to them you can do it.
There's so much that seems to come back to the idea though of isolation
but what you're saying essentially is time is what you invest in somebody
to show them they've got value.
That's what it's all about though, isn't it?
If I'm going to see any of the guys, I will go out of my way
and I'll go and speak to them face to face.
That is important.
– It's so simple. – It's so simple.
– You say it and people don't realise ... – It's so simple.
– How powerful that is. – Yeah.
It can make a huge difference to somebody's life.
Is that something that in the prison system is kind of also discouraged
for whatever reason as well?
Yeah, I would say so.
It comes down to like a culture thing of changing the culture of the prison service.
The prison system should see prison officers as the person of change.
That role model for these people to turn their lives around.
Nearly all the men I ever saw as a kid that got out of prison,
they come out even more damaged and even more violent
and even more driven to sort of express that hatred towards a system again
and attack it and keep attacking it.
– If you hadn't met Darren ... – I honestly can't tell you.
I definitely wouldn't have gone back to prison, I don't think,
but I don't know where and how I would have end up being today.
So while we focus mostly on what happened to John before,
I think it's what happened to him when he left prison,
the attitude kind of took with him outside
and how he decided to affect the world that he lives in,
which is probably the most impressive part of the story.
And when I went on my first parole hearing the judge said to me,
'your release plan is not based in reality and you're a dreamer.'
Today, I'm standing in front of you
the only Nike sponsored Ironman athlete in the world.
Once people fall into committing crime and then going to prison,
it feels very much like you're a lost cause in some people's eyes
once you've done that.
Do you think that's how society sees people?
Yeah, I do because I experienced it myself.
You have that stigma that a leopard never changes its spots.
I was ashamed of what I did years ago
because my life dramatically changed so much.
I was very nervous about being ostracised,
especially joining this rowing club because I thought they would judge me
and they wouldn't want me to be in their social circles or be friends with them
and stuff.
How did that come about, you revealing what your story was
and your background?
For the first six months I was here, I was just known as like John,
the guy that that was very good athlete.
I had never told anyone about anything
I'd ever done on a rowing machine because I was so worried someone would Google me.
No one really knew ...
So you couldn't tell people you'd broken a world record?
No, no, no.
And I found out basically one person did discover I went to prison
and then I thought, right I need to reclaim control of this,
so I wrote a blog and the blog kind of went viral within rowing.
100% of it was completely supportive, all the way up to the head of British Rowing.
Do you want to explain a little bit of what you've done to kind of use that as
a tool for getting out to other communities and other people.
When I first go out of prison I was so consumed
with being a really good athlete.
Everything I've spoken about to this point, in fact, it's always been about me.
It's always been about creating a legacy and my moment of realisation
was going back to when I started going to schools
and seeing and hearing horrific stories about how young people
and people in general were being failed by the system.
By the system that you had been, almost indoctrinated against
in a way when you were younger.
Since I was a kid.
I just thought to myself I'm not going to be a bystander
and watch these people being failed so bad.
I haven't got millions of followers and stuff but it's very difficult
for someone to sit across the table from me and say
'what you're saying is nonsense'.
I am the proof you shouldn't give up on people and I think that gives me a very
strong platform and it has had a big impact.
Like park runs now in prison,
football programs are going in prison, rugby programs are going in prison.
Legacy, in reality, isn't money and it isn't medals
and it isn't how fast I can run a marathon.
My legacy will be the people's lives I've affected in a positive manner,
their kids lives will be better and their kid's, kid's lives will be better
and it'll go on and on and on and that's the reality of life like that chain
will go on from me being six foot in the ground and that's what legacy genuinely is.
Because it doesn't mean anything else other than that because we're all going
to end up in the same hole and that's the end of that.
So much of what John and Darren has spoken about links directly to common
themes which have come up throughout both the series that we've done
on masculinity and I just found it really positive just to speak to him about
his own experience.
Yeah, I think that's a really big part of what the series is about
It's about finding people who have found a way through difficult times and
he is a perfect example of that so I hope you've enjoyed this.
We do, like I say, have at least one more episode coming up
so if you want to stay up to date with what we're doing
make sure you like, comment and subscribe.
Can you just like put it on the screen? I don't wanna say it anymore.