LJ

Founder of Cell Workout and ex-prisoner

I plugged away for five years trying to be allowed back into prison so that I could try to give something back and inspire other prisoners to change their lives.

Although prison was a massive knock, once I found my feet I wanted to use my time as productively as possible. I spent months in Pentonville developing the exercises for Cell Workout and the best part of three years designing the book and publishing it myself before Hodder and Stoughton took it on.

I must have been knocked back what felt like a million times, until Ian Bickers, who was Governor at HMP Wandsworth at the time, decided to take a chance on me and let me come back in to deliver my fitness and achievement courses. I set up a social enterprise – Cell Workout Enterprise C.I.C – and, with the help of the Prisoners’ Education Trust, succeeded in winning funding from the Ministry of Justice to deliver my Cell Workout Workshop programme in HMP Wandsworth.