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A man thought he was talking to a teenage girl online when he asked: "What are you doing in a dirty chat room full of pervs?" It's Wednesday afternoon at a major London prison, and the introductory session for its first Alpha course of 2014 is about to start. The prison itself - which GQ has agreed not to name - is Victorian; a recent report criticised its overcrowded conditions and vermin infestations. Yet here in the chapel it is spacious and clean. The walls at the front are painted pink. The stained-glass windows are covered in attractive lattice work, not immediately recognisable as bars. Matthew Smith, mitigating, said that Evans got involved in the drugs offences because he "had a significant debt to those who supplied him previously." This was the beginning of a life of crime that would span 17 years, which led to violence, drugs and ultimately sentences spent in prison.
He has been on the streets and his drug habit has got worse, using mamba which he has never used before.Shane admits he only went into the course for the free cakes and biscuits but came out a changed man. Though he has now changed his ways, Shane is brutally honest about the lifestyle that led him to be marked as “dangerous” by the Home Office. He then placed his hand on my head and told me to pray, but to genuinely pray, to mean it from the heart.
I would steal anything in my path,” said Shane. He was soon mixing with the wrong crowd and he made daring daylight burglaries while the occupants were at home. While in Long Lartin prison I walked into an Alpha course (about God), although I would argue that science proves the Bible wrong. I still went because of the free cakes, coffee and biscuits, which is quite a big event within prisons. Shane felt an urge to start writing to Robert and began reading the Bible that was in his cell. He was then moved to another prison, where a minister invited him on Alpha. ‘I said, “Yeah, put my name down.” I was mostly interested in getting the chocolate biscuits and having debates.’
What has Shane Taylor said?
On Sunday at 6.30pm Shane will tell his story at St Agnes Church in Easterside, Middlesbrough, which will also act as an introduction to the Alpha course. Everyone is welcome to attend. On an overcast January day in Middlesborough town centre, Shane Taylor, now aged 33, is sitting with GQ in an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. Earlier, he bought a new colouring book for his children, Isaac, Grace and Angel. In a couple of weeks, his wife will give birth to his fourth, Jacob. He did his Alpha course in 2005, while at HMP Long Lartin, one of 45,000 British inmates to have done so since Michael Emmett brought it into the system. And, for Taylor, it happened by mistake. He was once one of the six most dangerous inmates in Britain. But as Shane sits in his family’s neat front room, filled with children’s books and religious DVDs, bar his vast build, it’s hard to imagine he shared a prison wing with Britain’s most notorious prisoner Charles Bronson. She finally alerted police officers when he came home with two bottles of vodka, said Catherine Picardo, prosecuting. The couple are now getting a divorce.
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