The full biography.

Paul Cowley was born in Manchester. Both of his parents were alcoholics — not violent, he says, but absent; their evenings conducted largely in bars. At 15, after an argument with his father, he walked out and didn't go back. He slept rough, fell in with a squat, and drifted into petty crime — shoplifting, taking cars without licence or insurance. Eventually a magistrate, tired of trying to help him, said: "Cowley, you my son are going to prison." He served six months at HMP Risley borstal. It frightened him.

At the age of 21, he applied to enlist and was turned away because of his criminal record. He kept going back until, after six weeks, a senior officer pulled him aside and said: "I'm going to take a chance on you, son. Don't let me down." Over the next 17 years he served in the Royal Artillery, the Royal Green Jackets, and the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, completing several tours in Northern Ireland and serving in the Falklands campaign. In 1993 he left the Army as a Staff Sergeant.

After leaving the forces, he ran a number of health clubs in London and worked as a personal trainer to various celebrities — a world away from the one he would soon enter.

A life-changing encounter

In 1994, after nearly 38 years as an atheist, Paul attended an Alpha course at Holy Trinity Brompton with Amanda. On the final morning of the weekend away, as Nicky Gumbel spoke about God's unconditional love, he dropped to his knees at the back of the room and wept. "God did a real number on me," he later said.

Soon afterwards, he was persuaded to join a prison visit. HMP Dartmoor was isolated and desolate on the moors; he arrived hours early and slept in the car. Midway through the chapel service he was asked, unexpectedly, to stand and tell his story — the first time he had ever spoken publicly about his past. Driving back to London that night, he describes hearing a voice: "I've got a job for you. If you'll be brave and courageous."

He went back, and back again. "I fell in love with it," he later said. By 1997 he had left his post as general manager of Champneys in London to join HTB's staff full-time, and the vision for Alpha in Prisons was born.