A LIFE of crime has been swapped for spin classes and boxing rings by a personal trainer who found himself ‘in with the wrong crowd’ after he left school.

Mike Purvis, now 31 years old, served a prison sentence for violent gang crimes around Oxfordshire in 2008.

It started with drinking on the streets but ended up with him standing in the dock of Oxford Crown Court for violent burglaries and other crimes.

He was sentenced to nearly four years in prison and spent time at HMP Reading before he was moved to Weymouth – a three-hour drive away, and a ‘trek’ for his family and friends.

He said: “I got one visitor in eight months because it was just too difficult for my family to get to.”

But inside he spent time reflecting, and knew that when he came out, he was going to turn his life around.

He explained: “I just knew when I left that I was never going to go back, and in my head thought, ‘I had to do this’.”

Despite the motivation, the statistics were not as hopeful.

According to the National Institute of Justice, just shy of 50 per cent of prisoners struggle to be rehabilitated and end up back in prison within a year.

Mr Purvis said the fire only got bigger in his belly to beat the odds and added: “I knew I saw the world in a different way to most prisoners, if that makes sense.”

In 2010 he returned from Weymouth to Oxfordshire armed with a gym certificate and a new lease of life.

He said: “I got a job in a factory and started to save up money so I could go back to college and get a gym instructor qualification.”

He managed to bag himself a place at a college in Birmingham on the level 2 gym instructor course, a step on the ladder to becoming a personal trainer.

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He said: “I did that, and I passed the course.

“I got a job in Banbury, where I lived at the time, called Fighting Fit – but that has now closed down, this was in 2010 when I left prison.

“Anyway it all got a bit interesting from there, I got back with my ex-partner and I had a son.

“The problem is gym instructors don’t make a lot of money and I needed to get another job to pay for my son.

“I saved up again to go on another course and become a bricklayer.

“Actually, I ended up doing that for five years.

“Then my friend – who was a promoter at the time for a boxing club – said he needed me to step in for a fight because somebody had pulled out.

“I decided to give it a go, but I hadn’t been training or even in the gym much at the time, so I lost the fight.

“However, because the match was so close, the organisers put on a re-match and I went on a mission to get as fit as I could.

“It was then I realised I didn’t want to do bricklaying anymore and I wanted to go back into something at the gym.

“I was getting such a strong feeling of ‘this is what I should do – this is what I love, and I want to go back to working in a gym’.

“So, I saved up again and I got my level 3 qualification to be a personal trainer.”

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The new college course meant that his career opportunities were greater than when he worked as a gym instructor and he could still support his son, who is now five years old, whilst doing something he loved.

He said: “I got a job at Bicester Leisure Centre – but now I’ve decided to go self-employed and I’ll be working at the new Pure Gym when it opens in Bicester retail park.

“I also did a class course so now I teach spin classes and boxing.”

Personal trainers at gyms can be self-employed by paying a fee to the gym so that they can train clients in the facilities.

He added: “When I was in prison, I just knew that was not the kind of person I wanted to be.

“That life was not for me.

“It took going to prison for me to see that I don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want to go to prison again. The gym is what saved me. I know that sounds really cheesy, but it’s true.”

He said he’s turned his life around, but going to prison actually helped him relate to so many ‘different types of people’ that he meets every day.

He said he has worked in factories, gyms and met people in the two prisons who have helped him ‘understand the world’.

He said: “It’s one of my strengths as a personal trainer now, I’ve seen and met so many people from all different walks to life and I understand the world.

“That’s another thing – I was really overweight as well at one point in my life too – and this isn’t how it’s always been.

“I was 18 stone so I’ve felt that feeling that people have when they come to me and the gym.

“I have been there; I’ve done it and I understand.”

He said that it was important for youngsters leaving school to get in with a group of people ‘who build you up’ and ‘make you a better person’.