From young offender to junior doctor: 'I wrote a plan and stuck to it'

Steven Beattie spent his teenage years in and out of Polmont young offenders' institution, once described by a former governor as "the most violent prison in Scotland" , external . He was sent there at 16 after drunkenly crashing a stolen car, and returned repeatedly over the next four years as his involvement with gangs and violence grew. For Steven, the turning point came when he was punished for his part in a fight by being locked up for 23 hours a day and having his TV removed.

Steven admits it wasn't easy for a young offender to start a new life but, after years of effort, he's about to graduate as a junior doctor. His father had the degenerative disease Parkinson's, and his mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as well as cancer, from which she later died. He left school at 15, and thinks few of his teachers understood how much stress he had been under because he had been "embarrassed" to tell them.

Looking back, he gives himself "a degree of sympathy" that he didn't do so well in school because of what he was dealing with at home.