RT COMMUNITY SUPPO Lifestyle chats to Liverpool based John Burton, founder of Inside Connections, which has offices in Liverpool, the West Midlands and London “WE ARE DEFINED BY WHO WE ARE TODAY AND NOT WHO WE ONCE WERE”
I
nside Connections was formed in 2017 to provide services and support to businesses and education facilities, offering access to training leading to sustainable employment. As an ex criminal John turned his life around and helps others do the same. Since then they’ve helped thousands of people, with over 100 employers engaged. He says, “I was raised on a Liverpool council estate in the 1970s. The streets were riddled with drugs and crime in a deprived Britain at the time, particularly the north. We never had much growing up. The ones who had the nice clothes, watches and cars rom the area
10
weren’t coming out of a good education in a well-earned job, that was unheard of. It was the drug dealers and criminals. In the environment I get up in there was only two choices. Educations wasn’t really an option, it was selling drugs and making money or take drugs and lose everything. Heroin was rife, I didn’t want that for me so I got into criminality at a young age, heroin being one of the things I wouldn’t sell. In 2017 I was released from prison after serving a second prison sentence for 6 out of 12 years for money laundering and the transportation of
cannabis, cocaine and amphetamines worth millions, around the UK. The last part of my sentence I served 19 months as a category D prisoner in the Isle of Sheppey, which was a 540 mile round trip for a one hour visit for my family. Witnessing my young family struggle because of something I had done was a major factor for my rehabilitation and resettlement and I needed to do something about it. I set up a website and mobile app aimed at prisoners, their families, victims of
