THE first time Paul Jones went into care he was eight years old. His parents had separated when he was six, which was to be the last time he saw his father. After two years living with his mother, she found she could no longer cope with her young headstrong son, the eldest of her three boys and two girls.

"I was just a little sod," admits Paul, of County Durham. "By the age of eight I was going around stealing anything that wasn't nailed down. I think half the time I was bored and I was probably attention seeking a bit too."

Exasperated by her out-of-control son, his mother ended up getting a voluntary care order. Paul struggles to recall what his time was like while in care.

"I can't remember being in the homes really because I was in a few before the age of ten," says Paul, now 40. "Then after that, I got into more serious trouble, hanging around with people from the homes. The things I ended up doing got progressively worse - like burglary, arson and theft. I don't blame my mum for putting me in care, because she couldn't cope with me."

By the time he was aged 12, Paul was locked up in a secure unit in County Durham. Initially, he was in a section with the tightest security.

"If you behaved then you would be moved to a medium risk unit, where you were still locked up, but you could move around a little more," he says. "I was locked up in a mixed sex unit with murderers, rapists and prostitutes. There were about a dozen people in there and I was one of the youngest. I was so angry because I couldn't see myself being in the same league as them. I knew what I had done was really bad, but it surely it wasn't as bad as killing someone.

"It was run basically like an adult prison. You were locked in your room at 6pm and you couldn't go anywhere or do anything. There were no televisions. All the furniture was screwed down. If you wanted to go to the toilet you had to be escorted."

At the time - 30 years ago - drugs had yet to become the major problem they are today in society. The main drug was cigarettes. Paul was bullied by one of the inmates, which stopped when he was moved to the medium and later the low risk unit, but he says they were treated well by the staff.

"There was a psychologist called Andy there and it's really down to him that I managed to turn things around," he says.

"I'd always said I would be dead by the time I was 21 and I believed that. Then Andy suggested I join the Scouts, which is something I would never have done on the outside. I ended up really enjoying it. It gave me something to focus on, an interest."

After his success with the Scouts, Andy suggested that with Paul's high IQ, he may be allowed to go to school part-time outside of the unit.

"At the time, the English lessons we took in the unit would involve doing a word search," he says. "The confinement itself didn't bother me, because I used to sit in my room reading encyclopaedias - which up until then was about the only education I had.

"I'd missed about four years of school what with being in and out of care and skiving off a lot. The only lesson I'd liked was maths, anything else I just didn't want to know and would take off.

"Andy pushed me into going and got permission from the manager. It was hard to start with because everyone at school knew where I was from, but I ended up making friends there that I still have today."

Paul was 15 when he went to school, and had just a year to study for his O-Levels.

"I think my attitude changed," he says. "The psychologist had said 'you've got to make the effort, otherwise you're going to be stuck for the rest of your life' and what he said seemed to sink in."

Paul left school at 16 with five O-Levels and four CSEs and went on to become a joiner. He married his wife, Janice, when he was 21 - 19 years ago - and the couple have a young daughter.

Although he is happy with the way his life has turned out, he prefers to keep his identity a secret, amid concerns that other people may not be so understanding, given his background. He is also fully aware that his circumstances could have played out much differently. Adam Rickwood, 14, became the youngest person in Britain to die in custody when he was found hanged in the privately-run Hassockfield Secure Training Unit, near Medomsley.

"In the end, I was a better person for being locked up," he says. "If I hadn't been sent there I might not be here now.

"I've kept track of a lot of people I was inside with and there's a few serving life sentences now and there's a few who are dead. I don't blame anyone for why I ended up in a secure unit, it was all my fault. I think that's a problem a lot of people have today, they blame everyone else but themselves.

"But if it hadn't been for the psychologist and the guy who ran the place, who knows what would have happened to me. I would have probably ended up in prison - or worse."

Some names in this article have been changed.