Here Richard shares his story for The PPT Winter Appeal, giving back to the charity that helped him in prison.
Richard spent most of his early life in ‘the system’: growing up in care, his autism undiagnosed, he got into trouble, served time in detention centres and borstal, and eventually prison. But today the chaos and suffering that once surrounded him is in the past.
With support from meditation and yoga, he is leading a meaningful life: he volunteers to help others, speaking in public – including in Parliament – about his experiences and providing a role model to others who are lost ‘in the system’.
It was during a move to a new prison, at three in the morning, crammed into a prison van with six officers, blue lights flashing that he decided something had to change.
“I was looking around me thinking, how have I got into this situation? This is a battle I’m losing. I realised I needed to change the battle plan and look at why I’m here.”
He reached out for help to The Prison Phoenix Trust, the UK’s leading charity supporting yoga and meditation in prisons. He wrote – and a mentor from The PPT wrote back, offering to support and guide him from afar as he explored the healing practices of yoga and meditation.
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“Prison isn’t a good place to drop your guard,” he recalls, “but through the letters I could talk more openly and look at myself more. I could put my emotions down on paper that I couldn’t say out loud to anyone.”
In HMP Belmarsh he saw a sign for a yoga class and went along and soon he was hooked, seeking out yoga whenever he was moved to a new prison.
“I was on a journey of total change and yoga helped to support it.”
In 2024 The prison Phoenix Trust supported yoga classes in more than 70 prisons in the UK and Ireland. The charity trains and supports teachers to adapt their classes for the prison environment and to deal confidently with safety and security inside. As well as yoga classes, The Prison Phoenix Trust produces specialist resources, including handouts, books, DVDs and CDs to help people practise yoga and meditation in their cells.
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For Richard, the yoga and meditation he learned in prison, also helped him to make the transition to life on the outside.
“As I got to the end of my sentence, Yoga and meditation really helped. I’d do 12 rounds of sun salutations on the exercise yard every day and tell myself as I walked around, ‘Keep your feet on the ground.’
“I knew my challenges on release were going to be massive. I had no home, relationships or anything for five years and I knew this is going to be some journey. Whenever my mind started worrying, yoga helped massively, kept me in my body.
“I was lost and desperately looking for things to return to. I’d caused my family so much pain and when I came out it was difficult for them. I needed to be mindful of the suffering that I’d put my family through.
“It took about a year to start to rebuild those connections. I had to start a new life in a new town. I was 50 and had to start my whole life again.
“The Prison Phoenix Trust was a beacon of light that got me through some very difficult inner battles with myself. But it stayed with me wherever I went and still does to this very day.”
See Richard’s 2-minute film on YouTube
“Life has a way of slowing us down. I had a prolapsed disc and had to stop training for two years, including yoga. But I carried on with the meditation. Even if you physically can’t do yoga, meditation helps you take every day as it comes, and keep your feet firmly on the ground.
“When you’ve done a long sentence you’re going to need many tools to keep going, to take responsibility and to keep your feet on the ground. Now I’m going to yoga classes again but I’m more about calm, meditation, reading, and listening.”
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