Out of the Box - The Story of Leroy Smith

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As he explains in his book, he didn’t scare people by his physical presence; rather, his power was psychological – he had a gun and he had the heart to use it. Gradually he became a monster and was quite happy to sell drugs and shoot people, including two police officers. New recruits initially undertake 17 weeks of extensive and wide-ranging learning. This includes a classroom-based session on how restorative justice can be used to repair harm caused by criminal behaviour and to help deter people from committing further crimes. I felt degraded [and] upset at the time. For many years there was a lot of bitterness there. Not hatred, but bitterness,” he said. The unlikely friendship has blossomed into something incredibly powerful and both men now regard the other as a friend.

It’s a simple thing [but it’s revealing], years later, now I’m an author, actor and mentor, I've seen shady people get real wobbly when people ask them what they do.” When I came out the second time, my ex-partner really got my mind opened and thinking, it’s because of her that I made it. She was challenging me about some things and making me look at [others] differently.”

He fled the UK using fake travel documents and went to Holland and five days later he ended up in New York. Tough childhood One of Leroy's three shots hit Met Police officer James Seymour (Image: Facundo Arrizabalaga/MyLondon) His then partner agreed, she supported him financially for the year it took to write the book and helped him with parts of the text. I had a young family at the time and I liked to do a bit of overtime,” James said. “One of the easiest things you could do was to get a simple drugs arrest by a pub called the Atlantic on the corner of Coldharbour Lane [in Brixton]. A powerful book. Passionate, brave and disturbing. It relates the true, very frank, story of a criminal who has turned his life around. Most poignant is the tribute from his daughter, who grew up lying about her father, ashamed to admit that he was a category A prisoner.”

Now out of jail, he is trying to start again from nothing, knowing that the forces that drew him into a life of violence in the first place are – in some respects – even stronger than before. Both men were apprehensive before meeting each other after the crime (Image: Facundo Arrizabalaga/MyLondon) After all, the next encounter with the man who’d shot him was in court. There an unrepentant Leroy had taunted him, pointing an imaginary gun across the room and pretending to shoot. It is a story that the unlikely pals also share with younger generations of Londoners who are believed to be at risk of falling into the violent world that first brought them together almost 20 years ago. The book Out of the Box has been updated by the pair and it could potentially be adapted into an on-screen production.He then spent a few yeas on the run in Jamaica and the United States, living the high life as a drug dealer. The girls were readily available and the weed was plentiful. During this time Smith led a violent, high-risk life, as he explains:

Leroy fired another shot which hit me about a centimetre away from my spine, ripped across the top of my kidney and ripped out the side of me,” he said. The average person is nice and people are cool with you. I know people in Handsworth and other places. I knew Burgers, Johnnies in prison got on with all of them.He believes the only reason he survived his time in prison was because of the “mutual respect” that was shown between the prisoners. I was nervous,” James explained. “[I thought] was I doing the right thing? Did he genuinely want to redeem himself? And was he genuine?” Leroy, meanwhile, learnt the hard way himself after serving 20 years of a 25-year sentence for shooting two police officers in Brixton. Read More Related Articles