Against All Odds: The Most Amazing True-life Story You'll Ever Read

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That’s no revenge; your life is over, your revenge should be to go on and have a happy family and to be a successful man and prove these people wrong.” The investigation, titled Operation Mapperton, uncovered child abuse at the children's home and Paul gave evidence discussing his time growing up at St Leonard's. Where to begin with reviewing this autobiography? I feel like I may need to repeat the word autobiography to myself often, just to remind myself that this really happened and that it wasn't just some gritty fictional novel that I was reading. In another section of the book he talks about going to night classes to learn English, and refers to others in the class as ‘real retards’. What an awful thing to say. Paul and his peers were all in the same boat, trying to better themselves by learning to read and write, yet he has the audacity to refer to them with such awful words.

He began working as a doorman for busy bars and admits he would get involved in altercations on the door. He became involved with Operation Mapperton to uncover the child abuse that took place at the children's home. He actually saved my life, the Father in charge of the children's home beat me to a pulp and it was a particularly bad beating. Read More Related Articles Paul was transferred to St Leonard's Children's Home in Hornchurch, which use to be situated between a bus garage and a park. The boys were subjected to horrific assaults from a gang of paedophiles who would enter the dormitories at night.In and out of trouble with the law since he was very young, Paul Connolly was not well pleased when, in his twenties, two policewomen came to his door. The news they told him stunned him. Of all the children in his dormitory at the abusive orphanage where he’d grown up, only he and one other were still alive. Most likely as a result of the horrendous sexual abuse they had suffered, nearly all his friends had committed suicide. The news made Paul reconsider the direction of his whole life and start to make something positive from it. The Best You discovers how despite the worst of beginnings, Paul Connolly became a famous celebrity fitness trainer and a bestselling author – even though he only learned to read when he was 25 years old.

Daniel O'Malley, a detective inspector who heads the continuing investigation, suggested that there could have been as many as 70 victims during those years. Then, at the age of eight he was moved to St leonard’s children’s home in Tower Hamlets. It was to be a life-changing move, for all the wrong reasons. From the Principal, down, the home was run by a paedophile ring. From then on, Paul’s childhood and schooling was fi lled with violence and mental torture. On my first night I wet the bed and a nurse scrubbed me in bleach and said 'That's what we do to whoever wets the bed here'," he said. St Leonard's Cottage Homes was built around 1890, and began with trying to house 'pauper' children away from the workhouses. Most cottages were looked after by a house-mother and a house-father. It emerged that one house-father, Bill Starling, 94, had indecently assaulted, raped or buggered 11 victims, aged between five to 14 years old over twenty years, The Guardian reports.After being abandoned as a baby, Paul Connolly grew up in a very poor and abusive children's home. Throughout his childhood, he was told he would amount to nothing, and probably end up in prison, or dead. For most of the kids he grew up with, this proved to be true. Paul has spoken of how the children would not go to school as they would be bullied following the abuse at the children's home, and instead would go and ride horses. The confrontation, which happened when Paul was 13 years old, meant that the abuse towards him stopped. Learning to read and write as an adult

This book was a real eye opener for me and has made me grateful for my own childhood. Paul Connolly was abandoned as a baby and wound up in an awful children's home, where all the children suffered some level of abuse. This book was not easy reading at times as Paul explains how there was a lot of emotional, psychological, physical and also sexual abuse in the home. I felt my eyes fill up with tears many times. It is a true testament to just what a character Paul has managed to become though, as through all the horrors in his story he also managed to make me laugh out loud on multiple occasions. Instead, Paul began getting interested in boxing. Although he originally intended to become a professional boxing champion, this was no longer an option after an accident. Instead, he became a personal trainer/fitness coach and went on to become very successful with that. He now is married and has two boys. A third social worker, Hayden Davies, 79, who was convicted for buggering a teenage boy in 1981, faced 37 charges of indecent assault, rape and buggery, had proceedings dropped against him after the loss of evidence meant a fair trial was not possible. These were the first sort of serious role models that I found weren’t trying to bugger me or beat me up.” he recalls. He left school at 14 and started work on a veg stall in Romford market. He looked set to become a professional boxer and was about to sign a contract at the age of 18, when a severe accident meant that he technically died from loss of blood. The next few years were a struggle. He was taken to St Leonard's Children's Home in Hornchurch where he suffered mental and physical abuse, and remembers men 'climbing the fire escape' to rape children.

Summary

The home's superintendent, a former Labour councillor, Alan Prescott, 79, had indecently assaulted four teenage boys at various points during the 1970s. The home was made up of several dormitories where the children would sleep, with up to 12 beds in each building. Read More Related Articles With no real schooling and no positive male role models, Paul gained a reputation as a violent schoolboy, which at least protected him from the attentions of his potential abusers. When he was nine, he joined a boxing club. Here, he fi nally found a group of men who took him in, trained him and fed him. I had to wait a year and a half to go to Crown Court, and all I could hear was the people who’d brought me up in children’s homes saying to me you’re a low-life Irish scumbag and the only place you’re gonna end up is in prison.” In the end, that is the choice Paul made. He went on to train a-list celebrities like Elle Macpherson in Hollywood and has now written a chart-topping book telling his remarkable story which has been optioned for a movie – all the way from being thrown out with the rubbish to his rise to success.