My name is Fraser. I got done for Conspiracy to Supply a Class A Drug - HEROIN!! And with Intent to Supply a Class A Drug - HEROIN!! I got sentenced to 10 years in total. When the judge sentenced me, he gave me 5 years for the Conspiracy to Supply and 5 years for Intent to Supply to run concurrent. I´m going to talk to you today on - HOW SMALL CRIMES LEAD TO BIGGER ONES. * * * I started stealing sweets from a shop; I wasn´t even ten years old. Why? I did it because my friends would say, ´Come on Fraz - go and get some Yorkie Bars mate´, and I did. Only 20 years later I wish I had just turned around and said NO! But that was only the start of things. By the time I was 14 my mum and dad had enough of me. I was stealing things out of the house, things what they had worked hard to get, in then end they threw me out, they´d just had enough. * * * I had nowhere to live I had to sleep wherever I could - that´s when I got involved in drugs! I started to smoke Puff (Cannabis) because I thought it made me look cool, and fit in better. But as time passed I moved on to harder drugs! I was 16 years old when I tried Heroin for the first time. Since that day my life hasn´t been the same. Within weeks I had found my first addiction of drugs, and to have an addiction, you need money to feed an addiction. You can forget working or a job. You need money there and then when you´re a Heroin addict. So I started shoplifting on a daily basis to pay for my Heroin addiction. Within months shoplifting wasn´t bringing enough money to feed my habit. So I turned to credit card fraud which ended with me being arrested and put in prison for a short spell!! By the time I was 22 years old, Heroin had completely taken over my life, I cared for nothing and no-one, I lost all respect, I started burgling houses, sometimes 3 a day. I’d go out dipping (which is pick-pocketing), I´d steal purses out of hand bags - people like your mum, I´d take it not even thinking how they would be able to feed their children. Then I found a new way to feed my drug addiction - by selling drugs, and that´s why I´m in prison today. Sometimes I look at other prisoners and think to myself - they´re lucky!! Now I bet you´re thinking how can you say they´re lucky? Well I´ll tell you why. Because some of them have only just started to walk down that wrong path, so there´s still a chance. There´s still hope for them. As for me, I didn´t walk down that path, I ran down it. And believe me the only thing you´ll get out of drugs and crime is a lot of pain. So if someone should ask you to steal something, no matter how small it is, just say NO and think for a moment where those Yorkie Bars have got me. I´ve had a 17 year prison sentence, that´s half my life, since I started stealing. From Yorkie Bars to shoplifting, to Fraud, Burglary, Ram Raiding, and finally Drugs. I´m living proof that small crimes lead to bigger ones.