In the third part of Nottinghamshire Live's exclusive conversation with murderer Michael O'Brien from inside his prison cell, Legal Affairs Correspondent Rebecca Sherdley digs into his childhood and how the death of his dad left him scarred for life.
He had a "blinding childhood", says convicted murderer Michael O'Brien, who has served 19 years of a life sentence for the murder of 22-year-old Marvyn Bradshaw in Bulwell in 2003. But there was personal tragedy which set him on the rough road to crime.
O'Brien's dad died three or four days before his 13th birthday when his family lived in Wollaton Park. His mum, Joan, met John Stirland, of St Ann's, who she later married. Speaking from a phone in his cell, O'Brien remembers how they moved to St Ann's and he was probably "a nightmare" for his step-dad and he didn't get on with him.
"There was no reason really for us not to get on but he wasn't my dad and I was a daddy's boy", he says. After his mum met John, he spent more time at his sister's house.
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That's when his life of crime started at the tender age of 13. "If my dad hadn't have died I don't think I would have got into any trouble," says O'Brien. "When I see the police come at the age of ten, 12 (years) that was like seeing a spaceship.
"Police never used to knock on our door. We didn't know about that kind of stuff". From the age of six, he played football. He went on to have trials with Wolves, Birmingham, Nottingham Forest.
He played for Nottingham Schoolboys. "I played a lot of football until I lost my eye," he said. "Really, it was a chain of events; my dad died, I lost my eye. That took my football away from me. It just went wrong from there".
O'Brien lost the sight in his left eye after he was hit in the face.
His comments came in a call to ex-gangster Marvin Herbert, of HMP: The Marvin Herbert Project, who was being interviewed about his work with young people by Legal Affairs Correspondent Rebecca Sherdley when O'Brien joined the conversation and willingly answered questions to us about his past crimes and current life in jail.
"This is what we all get blamed for - how we deal with our trauma," said Marvin in reaction to the tragedy of O'Brien's childhood.
"We don't get the right support from the services to deal with the trauma we go through, said Herbert, who has been "nicked for everything" except rape and indecent assault. "They try to brush it under the carpet and tell us to have a week off school. 'Have a week off school, come back next week, you will be alright. Do your work, do your work, do your work'. You're like, "what? what? what?"
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He said the reaction is "bad kids", and it is sad they keep children in trauma at school without therapy or counselling. "We all get failed, so we can demonstrate clearly, just by Jay's (O'Brien's nickname) discussion there, everything that has happened to him, the chain of events, it's enough to send anybody off the rails".
Herbert survived being shot five times, once in the right eye, claiming his sight. He told Nottinghamshire Live he was convicted of a robbery on a security vehicle, possession of a machine gun with a silencer and armour-piercing bullets, but turned his life around in 2014.
"I was extradited from Spain to face trial for four murders and was exonerated," he said. "I lived in Spain. I had nothing to do with those. I got shot and turned my life around, came back to England and opened a boxing gym". Herbert is now an ex-con turned motivational speaker who mentors people and ex-criminals into a better life, and "anyone who was like me," he says.
"I have been chopped with axes. I have one eye. A disability. One testicle. I was shot five times - they tried to assassinate me in Spain. I have had Osman warnings (a warning of a death threat or risk of murder, issued by the British police or authorities to the prospective victim) since I was a kid.
"I was allegedly the leader of a team of assassins," he says. "They tried to execute me in 2008". Herbert feels O'Brien is "a better version of me" and "I can hear it in his voice. I think all he wants to do now is good. I don't think he has a bad bone in his body now".
Herbert has been speaking with O'Brien for a while on the phone and insists he "is real" and genuine. "He's had enough," says Herbert. "He wants to change other peoples' lives". O'Brien's mum and step-dad were gunned down in their Trusthorpe home after he was jailed over the killing of Mr Bradshaw - a murder he has now sensationally admitted to Nottinghamshire Live.
Herbert is planning to work with O'Brien on his release on a project called 'forgiveness'. He said to O'Brien on the call that he can now live in his mum and dad's memory making a difference to the world. And he said to O'Brien: "Now, you have just said, you would 'never have been a criminal, if your dad never died'. You are destined for what you are going to get now, I believe.
"This is what you are destined for. This is where you were supposed to go. Not exactly like this, but this is the way the universe is giving you the opportunity to get yourself back on track and make the most of yourself, so you can achieve the goals that your dad saw, if that makes sense".
* Michael O'Brien, now 42, is due for Parole this year.
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