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<\/p>\nA man from Torquay who says he bit a stranger’s nose off during a drink-fuelled robbery, spent years in prison and slept on the streets as a teenager has described how alcohol destroyed his early life and how he eventually turned it around.<\/p>\n
Lord Ashley Phipps-Warren said he first started drinking aged 12 after discovering his mum\u2019s box of wine.<\/p>\n
He told DevonLive: \u201cBy the age of 14 or 15 I was a full-blown alcoholic. If I didn\u2019t have a drink, I would shake and tremble. I was very ill.\u201d<\/p>\n
As his addiction worsened, Lord said his behaviour became increasingly violent, leaving his parents to ask him to leave home while he was still in school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t blame my parents at all. They continued to give me chances but I was like Jekyll and Hyde when I had a drink. I would smash the house up, cut up the sofas with knives. My mum told me after she thought I was going to kill her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite excelling at English and drama at school, Lord spent much of his final year sleeping rough.<\/p>\n
He even wrote his first book aged 15 while sleeping on the streets, which has now been published.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a child, I was homeless and I was an alcoholic. I used to sleep on the streets in my school uniform. I\u2019d wake up, have a drink and decide whether or not I wanted to go to school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the following years, Lord said alcohol led him into crime and repeated prison sentences.<\/p>\n
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Lord Ashley Phipps-Warren is an author and a recovery specialist(Image: Lord Ashley Phipps-Warren)<\/p>\n
Recalling one incident that led to his first prison sentence, Lord said he attacked a stranger after running out of money for booze.<\/p>\n
\u201cI confronted him on the street and he got all in my face. I ended up biting him on the nose and ripping it off. As he was lying on the floor, I took out his wallet from his pocket and went back into the pub and bought myself another pint.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next day I didn\u2019t even know I had done it. I got a tap on the shoulder from a police officer two weeks later and they showed me CCTV footage of it and I couldn\u2019t remember any of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was then sentenced to eight years in prison. Initially, he saw it as a chance to escape alcohol.<\/p>\n
\u201cI missed the booze. I was very ill at first. They don\u2019t wean you off it in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
After serving four years in prison, he was released.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked straight out of the prison gates and went and bought myself a beer.\u201d<\/p>\n