It first happened five years ago when I was walking past my local bus depot. As a child, I'd watched bus drivers in awe, wondering what it felt like to be behind the wheel. Now I was about to find out. One minute I was staring at a red double-decker bus, the next I just jumped aboard. It was as easy as that. I started pressing all the buttons until I found the master switch and got the engine started. I knew it was wrong but it gave me such a rush.

As a teenager, everything I did was on impulse, I didn't think of the consequences. I'd been living with foster parents since the age of 13 and a year later I'd fallen in with the wrong gang. They taught me how to steal, and soon I was hot-wiring cars with them.

It felt brilliant, and after a while I'd take cars by myself, just for the fun of it. The idea of taking double-decker buses was like moving up to the next level for me, a new novelty, more risky but more challenging, too.

Driving them out of the depot was a breeze, surprisingly simple. You could say I was a natural. I used to take them out for a spin around Portsmouth, where I was living at the time. I'd drive them at such speed that people waiting at the bus stops wouldn't even try to flag them down, they just looked confused; it was obvious something was awry.

They didn't realise at the depot that the buses where missing until days afterwards when I'd ditched them at roadsides. At one point I was taking two or three a day. Even then, I craved a bigger thrill, so I moved on to lorries.

I got a job working in a warehouse and one evening I looked in one of the boxes in the office and found all the keys – each one with the registration number attached. I drove one to Liverpool. It was huge – a 37ft-long, 22-tonne juggernaut, and I enjoyed driving it. I abandoned it somewhere in the city. At the warehouse they had no idea who'd taken it, so I didn't lose my job.

Lorries couldn't replace the buzz of driving buses, though, and soon after I took another one. This time the police spotted it was stolen and drove after me. I knew I had a choice – I could pretend I was in Speed and put my foot down or accept reality and give in. I must have had some sense because I pulled over and they arrested me. I went to court and got a suspended sentence, but went straight back to taking buses afterwards.

A few weeks later, the last time I took a bus, I drove to my mate's in Ipswich. He couldn't believe it when I pulled up outside his house and beeped the horn. The bus stayed outside his house until I drove it home.

I knew then I couldn't get away with it for much longer, that I'd get caught for good. On the way back from Ipswich, I was driving along the M25 and crashed into a lorry. Thankfully, the driver escaped unscathed, but I wasn't so lucky. I lost my spleen, appendix and also fractured my ribs.

When the police arrived, they realised the bus had been s­ tolen. I woke up from my daze in hospital and was taken into custody. I was sentenced to four years in prison. I served two and a half years – that was a wake-up call. I used the time to take educational courses and used every opportunity to work, from cleaning the toilets to recycling rubbish and working in the laundry.

I was told I had a tremendous work ethic and I felt happy only when I was active. Having a mentor who supports me has also been an enormous help. He has given my life stability, something I never had as a child.

I'd never dream of going back to my old life. I've had enough of prison and certainly don't have any more impulses to steal a bus. I'm a different person, I follow a new set of rules. I'll always regret what I did, but my life had no meaning back then. I know there are no excuses, but at 18 I felt I was in a trap, with no choices.

Now I have a flat, a job in a department store and I live with my fiancee and her eight- year-old daughter. I'm 23 now and my life is back on track. I'm happy to be living in the slow lane.

As told to Jill Clark

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