A FORMER criminal who played table tennis with fellow prisoner Abu Qatada is teaching schoolchildren how to steer away from a life of crime.

Paul Murdoch, 43, founded Directions Project UK, which sends ex-offenders into secondary schools to talk about prison life and how to avoid becoming embroiled in crime.

In the past month, the team have been to Burlington Danes Academy in White City and Sacred Heart High School in Hammersmith, where they received really positive feedback, and both schools want them to return.

Mr Murdoch, who grew up in Hammersmith, was sent to the UK’s highest security jail, HMP Belmarsh, for possessing a firearm in 2003, and two years after that sentence ended he was back serving a nine-and-a-half-year stretch for possession and intent to distribute cocaine.

He said: “I feel saddened to know that my actions contributed to so much hurt and devastation to the lives of my loved ones. My partner broke up with me and one of the worst times in my whole time in prison was missing my daughter’s birthday, it was just horrible, but I had committed a crime so I didn’t deserve the freedoms that others have.

“I left school at 16 because I thought I knew everything, but I didn’t have any qualifications and got in with a really bad crowd. I got sent to a secure unit in the middle of Belmarsh where even the SAS cannot get out of, because it was quite a high-profile case, and they thought the guys I was friends with might be able to get me out of a normal prison.

“I used to play ping-pong with Abu Qatada and the IRA guys who blew up a taxi outside the BBC were also in there. We never really discussed why we were in there but everyone in prison always says they’re innocent. It was a scary place where you had absolutely no privacy, guards watched you the entire time and there was even a cage above the exercise ground.

“After I served half of that four-year sentence I was allowed out and two years later I was back in prison. I couldn’t get employment because I had a criminal record and thought it was a good idea to pass on a large amount of cocaine for lots of money. The police did a three-month undercover operation and caught me in the act.”

Having served half of his drug-dealing sentence in various London prisons, Mr Murdoch decided to turn his life around and use his experiences to help youngsters avoid making the choices he did, so he set up Directions.

The reformed criminal and his team of seven ex-offenders now work with 55 schools in London and Sussex. They tell them the gory details of what prison life is really like, from having to strip and squat over a mirror in front of eight police officers as part of a body search, to wearing a uniform worn by 1,000 other prisoners before.

The team have had great feedback from pupils who feel they can ask them anything.

Mr Murdoch added: “It may seem odd but by the end of our talks students tend to trust us so don’t mind asking us questions. One of our team, Ramone, was imprisoned when she was just 15 for beating up a girl in a bathroom at school while another girl held the door closed.

“It really affected her, but through doing this it actually provides therapy for her and also means girls in particular learn a lot from her. We teach them about joint enterprise, which many people don’t realise you can get done for just being there when a friend commits a crime.

"The feeling we get coming out of those schools is so edifying. You humiliate yourself by doing it because I am embarrassed by my past, but if it wasn’t for setting up Directions, who knows where I would be today?"

Mr Murdoch is in the process of setting up a project to help offenders coming out of prison to get work and an education, as he says those are the key factors in preventing reoffending. He hopes to roll out the schools programme across the UK and is backed by plenty of magistrates.

Visit www.directionsprojectuk.co.uk to find out more and book a workshop.