Jonathan Bellamy heard Ryan Cox's story.

Ryan: Yeah, cause you try and outdo each other. Like, whatever you do, you gotta do something worse. Mine was car crime and criminal damage. I was bringing stolen cars back to the children's home and getting arrested for them.

Jon: You would go and steal them and then drive them back to the children's home?

Ryan: Yeah, just to show off.

Jon: In the showing off, was it to get attention and for people to see that you could do something?

Ryan: It was trying to be the alpha male in the home, cause obviously, we was young kids, so we all tried to 'outdo' each other, but at the same time we all got on great most of the time.
I liked the staff in The Springboard, they did spend a little more time with you and tried to get to know you a little bit, but that place shut down. I was only there for about six months and then I got to move to one in Rugeley.

Jon: How did you feel getting moved around?

Ryan: It didn't really faze me. I did get sick of it at one point and then I strapped myself to a radiator, in another place and said, "I'm not going this time, I just want to settle down." So Social Services tried to put me in foster care again, as it's more of a family environment and this place was in Keresley in Coventry.

Jon: How did that work out?

Ryan: It didn't, I just couldn't settle down there. I kept running off.

Jon: Do you know why you couldn't settle?

Ryan: I didn't feel loved by the foster carers. I felt like they were only in it for the money because it's obviously a well-paid thing to do. I didn't have attention off them, because my foster dad was always off working and my foster mum was always off doing her own thing. I just woke up one morning and thought, "There's nowt for me", so I just took a car and then I went back to Tamworth. Then I was sleeping around in between mates' houses for a bit, until the police caught up with me, because I was classed as a missing person.

Jon: How old were you at that time?

Ryan: Nearly 15. My mum and dad were still living in Tamworth at the time, so I went back to theirs and caused some trouble. In my eyes I grew some balls then, while I was in the care system. I smashed their windows and told them what I thought of them. The police caught up with me then, and I got arrested and put into another home in Newcastle. That weren't too bad, because one of the staff working there used to work in the first children's home I'd been in, so I knew him.

Jon: What did you feel about where your life was going? Did you feel things were escalating and were you getting angrier?