The previously feared London figure did not hold back in sharing his story of redemption with Marian Catholic College’s students.

“I came home one night and I found out my parents were getting a divorce and they told me I had to choose who to live with, not long after my mum had a nervous breakdown, my step-mum thought the best way to bring up a kid was to beat them senseless,” he said. “I made an unconscious decision to not love anyone after that, because loving people meant you got hurt.

“When I was 15 I was put in a detention centre, that’s when I left home, my only qualification was stealing and so that’s what I did. When I was 19 I was in prison again, they put me in 24-hour solitary confinement, that’s like having a mirror put straight in front of you. I thought about taking my own life.

“When I got out I started bouncing in the east and west-end clubs of London, I met men with power who had everything and I started working for them and not long after that I was one of them.

“They ran most of the organised crime in London.”

Mr Pridmore said the turning point for him had been the moment he hit a man with a knuckleduster to impress someone. “I thought I had killed him and the fact that I honestly didn’t care truly scared me,” he said. “I wasn’t just dead, I was decomposing.”

Mr Pridmore turned to religion to help pull him out of his darkest place and said he would never forget the tears his mother cried when he told her he had found God.

He has since spent his days working alongside Mother Theresa and other dedicated souls with troubled youth to help them get their lives back. He urged the students on Friday to not only make good choices in their lives, but to also understand that they were loved.

Principal of Marian Alan Le Brocque said the talk had been beneficial for students “The message is real, that’s the point,” he said.  “We all need to think about the choices we make and our interactions with each other.”