Andrew Pritchard was brought up in the London borough of Hackney, where he was part of Britain’s first post-Windrush mixed-race generation, born in the sixties.

By the age of 21, he was organising some of the largest illegal warehouse raves in the country, during the acid house party craze of the late 1980s. A successful entrepreneur and concert promoter for over 27 years, he revived the iconic Reggae Sunsplash festival, staging one of London’s largest music events in 1999, at Victoria Park.

At the same time, he was also masterminding some of the world’s biggest drug smuggling operations and soon began appearing in the United States Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration’s Annual Global Report and even featured in the Sunday People’s Criminal Rich List. In 2006, he was acquitted of a £100 million drug seizure case, before his criminal career was finally brought to an abrupt end, which resulted in him receiving a 15-year prison sentence for intent to supply and perverting the course of justice.

Assessed by the prison service as a very high-risk Category A prisoner, for whom escape must be made impossible, he was to spend a number of years in some of Britain’s most challenging prisons, in the company of some of the world’s most dangerous criminals.

Being locked up and away from his ageing parents, family, and children, Andrew had to face the consequences of his criminal past and it was whilst in prison, he made the big decision to change his life.

It was during Andrew’s time served first at HMP Belmarsh and in the following years at different prisons, that he changed from being a hardened criminal to a man who turned his life around and committed himself to supporting young prisoners to turn away from crime. Andrew focused on giving them hope and opportunity.

Following Andrew’s release from prison, he made the decision to form the AP Foundation, which is now a leading rehabilitation charity helping young people steer away from crime.

Andrew’s debut autobiography Urban Smuggler, which was released in 2008, has been endorsed by many leading criminologists, universities, and colleges around the United Kingdom, and has become recommended reading for students.

More on Andrew’s foundation here: AP Foundation | Home Page.