A DAD-of-one has told how he was left with six-inch weeping holes in his legs after suffering a deadly drug addiction.
Two decades ago, Paul Hannaford’s sores were so severe that he faced double amputation – but now he uses his injuries to stop children from following in his footsteps.
Last year, drug awareness advocate Paul, 55, celebrated 18 years clean of drugs and alcohol after his heroin and crack addiction nearly killed him.
He spent £2million on drugs over two decades and during his darkest days he was injecting himself 50 times a day.
Now Paul has swapped crack dens for schools across the country and has dedicated his life to sharing his harrowing life story in brutally honest workshops.
Paul told The Sun: “Kids cry in my workshops, they pass out. I’ve had thousands of kids faint.
“I show them pictures of me in hospital with maggots in my legs and tell them what it’s like to be brutally stabbed because I owed drug dealers money.
“I told them what it’s like to be locked up for 24 hours a day in a prison cell and become very lonely.
“I tell them about what it’s like to not see family at Christmas because I’m sat in drug dens sharing needles with other addicts.
“I’ve not just stepped out of an office or downloaded some rubbish from the internet to put on the screen for kids.
“Kids these days are hardcore, they need evidence and I’m living evidence of the consequences of drug abuse and gang culture,” he explained.
Despite his brutal approach, he’s not received one complaint from a parent during his years of teaching.
Instead, he receives countless calls and emails from parents and school teachers in tears begging him to hold workshops for their kids.
Paul, from Essex, revealed: “I had a head teacher phoning me in tears an hour ago – she was so desperate. She wanted me to visit her school in Kensington.”
“We’ve got problems. I went to a college in Middlesborough recently and I spoke to 200 16 and 17-year-olds across four different workshops. My talk with them about drugs, gangs, county lines and addiction was their first-ever talk.
“I then went to a prison, also in Middlesborough, and sat in front of 60 murderers who are coming to the end of their prison sentence.
“They’ve all been locked up since they were teenagers and all their murders were drug related. My talk with them on drug addiction was their first-ever talk.
“These men have cost the taxpayer £60million,” he added.
Despite being clean from drugs for 18 years, the life-changing effects still haunt him.
He has to bandage his legs every day as they still ooze blood and puss.
He carries the scars from the seven times he was stabbed, spent years behind bars and was cut from his daughter’s life after he left her mum just two weeks before she gave birth.
Stressing the importance of giving children the hard facts from the mouth of someone who has experienced the chaos and devastation of drug addiction, Paul made the point: “How many ten-year-olds are in prison now for murder? None.
“How many 10-year-olds are there running a gang with knifes in their pocket? None.
“Every gang leader right now walking around with a big knife in his pocket and every man in prison for murder was once ten.”
Paul was introduced to cannabis when he was 13 and within six months he was smoking it every day.
His school work suffered, he quit his beloved football team and his behaviour worsened, resulting in him being sent to a Pupil Referral Unit in Romford.
It was at the unit that he met 16-year-old gang members who forced him into carrying knives for them.
He said: “I got bullied a little bit by the gang to hold the drugs and go out and commit crime, then the violence started and I was carrying knives.
“I never stabbed anyone but I’ve seen a lot of stabbings. And slowly that was all I knew. I knew nothing else. I was a kid.”
He moved up the gang ranks and eventually became one of the leaders.
When he was 21 years old, Paul tried heroin for the first time.
“I never thought I’d get into class A drugs but I did. I was injecting heroin and it destroyed me,” he said.
He spent 10 years living in crack dens where he’d inject heroin into his hands, legs, feet, neck and groin.
“I’d also started to inject crack, which makes your veins thrombosed. Some days blood would squirt everywhere and I’d have large clots and open wounds,” he grimaced.
His mum later told him that every time she got a knock at her front door, she thought it would be the police telling her that he was dead.
By the time he was in his mid-thirties, he was holding dealers at gunpoint and stealing their supplies.
Paul admitted: “I knew that it was only a matter of days that I would be dead.”
With the police hot on his heels, Paul’s health had deteriorated so dramatically that he was hardly able to walk.
“I was in such a poor state with open wounds in my legs, I was terrified so I handed myself in.
“I know now that by doing so it saved my life,” he said.
After walking into his local police station he was arrested and was admitted to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex where he was handcuffed to a bed.
The 35-year-old’s health was in such a dire state that he spent his entire 12-week prison sentence at the hospital.
“The hospital was going to amputate both my legs but they put hundreds of maggots in them instead,” Paul said.
Larvae therapy involves applying live maggots to an open wound to help it heal.
They eat away at the dead tissue and bacteria, leaving behind healthy tissue.
“I also had 22 skin grafts and then after that, they took the handcuffs off and released me. I had nowhere to go, the only thing I owed that day was an old blood-stained tracksuit in a carrier bag,” he said.
Paul was offered a slot at a rehab centre in Somerset, but he wasn’t able to check in for another week.
With no family support and nowhere to go, Paul said: “I had a choice that day in the hospital, which was either go to rehab or back to a drug den and probably die.”
During his time at the hospital he’d befriended the staff so one of the nurses let him stay until he could go to the rehab in Weston super-Mare.
“For five days they fed me, showered me and clothed me. That nurse saved my life,” he said, still in awe of the staff member’s kindness.
After the grueling stint in rehab purged his body of the toxic substances and he worked towards getting clean, Paul decided he wanted to give back and try to stop as many young people making the same mistakes he did.
“The bottom line is if we continue not to give the kids in our care education on these harmful situations that grow in every community, then I strongly believe that things will just get worse moving forward.”
Despite hitting his target of holding workshops for one million children, Paul has decided to keep going.
“I’ve got about 10 years left in me for work, legs pending. I go to the gym every day. Life is ok today. My mental health is ok. I keep to myself, pay my bills, pay my taxes – life is decent.
“But, I had a goal to educate 1 million kids and I got there last year. So now I said I’ll do another million. That will take me another 10 years.”
During one of his school visits he had a chance encounter with his daughter, who was in year 11 at the time.
After slowly building a relationship and making amends, Paul beamed as he told us that he now sees his daughter “all the time”.
To find out more about Paul’s incredible story and his work, visit his website here.
GETTING HELP:
If you think that you have a drug addiction then please contact your GP.
You can also visit FRANK for honest information about drugs and to find local treatment services.
If you are having trouble finding the right help, call the FRANK drugs helpline on 03001236600
Or click here to visit the NHS website for more advice and support
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