ADRIAN PRITCHARD
“I was born in Hastings, Hawkes Bay 1971 with one older brother. We were brothers but never connected. I attended local schools until at 15 I was kicked out for abusing teachers, running away and acting out my frustrations.
Jesus was never mentioned in our household, there was violence and a lot of alcohol, parties and sexual behaviour that kids should never see at any age.
I got sexually abused as a 7-year-old. That went on for 4 years so much of my pluck and anger originated from that. I never spoke about it. Back in those days you hid things like that and did not speak out. That dark shadow hung over me all through my life until just 4 years ago my counsellor identified it, opened that can of worms and we were able to work through it and deal with it.
Praise God because through Him I have been able to see the impact of what was done to me, the injustice of it, and where that bottled up anger ultimately took me. A place of such darkness I never imagined I would find myself in, and from which I would later have to fight my way out of.
I tried to commit suicide at an early age but was rescued from that. I used school time to fantasize and do all sorts of crazy things I now recognise as indications of being deeply troubled. I never knew how to look at or talk to a female. At home I was used to hearing yelling and screaming and seeing my dad beat up my mum. Much later I needed to learn this was not acceptable behaviour.
I played lock in rugby which was a good outlet for my frustrations. I played with Josh Kronfeld who lived 3 doors away from me. We would go to the park and kick the ball around.
He became an All Black and I became a criminal.
I began stealing at 14 and when I was about to turn 16, I gapped it to Sydney. I had friends there who were involved in bikie gangs, and I also had cousins who were part of that world. I thought I could join up, live in that life and do better for myself than I had in Hawkes Bay. Big move, and I was naive. I thought the world was my oyster. I was 1.78 meters (5.11 feet) tall, fit and thought I could grab hold of the world.
At 16, I was allocated as a pimp and given control of one of their 4 massage parlours in Kings Cross. I was doing a lot of stuff I shouldn’t be doing.
The following 12 months opened my eyes to a world I had never known. I had been born into a household of abuse and the effects of all that continued to mould my life and shape what was to come.
In the massage parlour there was sexual deviate behaviour, violence and drugs. I started using a lot of coke and heroin as a way of coping with the anxiety and pressures of that environment. I thought I was the man and wanted to prove myself. I made a lot of money, but it was all a blur of drugs and parties. I could see if I stayed there any longer, I was going to die. Even before I became a Christian, I believe God’s hand was upon my life.
I stole from the gang and arrived back in New Zealand with a lot of money. I just took off and never returned. You can get killed for doing that. Again, I can only say God protected me. There was so much crap in my life. How am I still here but for God?
I moved to another area where my mum lived as my dad didn’t want to know me. When my mother saw me, she was shocked at what she saw and said ‘this is not my son’.
The cops arrested me as before I left for Sydney I was wanted for arson. I got a community sentence but that did not stop me getting into the riffraff. Life was full on, and I formed a bond with a rapist and murderer who had been kicked out of Australia. He was my best mate and together we did drugs and burgled as criminal partners. Unlike the gang members, he worked undercover, and I had such respect for the way he operated, talked to girls, did crime and investigated things. I took 10 years of learning from him.
I was a busy man travelling all over the north island. Crime was an identity for me, but I had a dream of going to America and becoming a rock star or celebrity. When that dream was shattered, I decided I would make as much money as possible and retire. Although I went to Hollywood, I only lasted a week, spent a load of money and came home with my tail between my legs. I was 18 and that dream was over.
Living in Auckland brought an escalation of crime. Armed robberies, holding up banks and dairies all driven by a new dream of owning a big house on the beachfront where I could sit for the rest of my life with a wife and kids running around. I thought I would show all those people from my past that I was the man. I’m going to live like a king and when you come knocking on my door, I’m going to tell you where to go.
When you live your life by crime, you live hard, and you die hard.
I treated it as work and as my drug fuelled confidence grew so did the magnitude of the robberies. Dairies, then pharmacies, then banks. I pulled a gun out on a bank teller wanting more money.
At one point, I was dubbed New Zealand's most wanted criminal.
My first lag in jail was 18 months for driving and threatening to kill and my second was 6 years for armed robbery and kidnapping.
When I was arrested for the second time I was under the influence of drugs and alcohol. I was sent to Mount Eden prison and put in the special drug unit. It still had barbed wire all around, but the walls were a bit lower than the other 10-foot-high walls. When we went into the yard, I got a mate to give me a leg up, chucked a mattress over the barbed wire and rolled over the wall and landed close to the motorway on the other side. Although I broke my ankle in the fall, full of adrenaline, I took off and ended up with mates. Three months later I was found and sent back into a court ordered rehab area of prison. I escaped from there too, went straight into a robbery to get money and again was caught. This time I was sent to Parry (Paremoremo maximum security prison). I got an extra 2+ years for that making a total of 8+ years. Crazy!
From 18 to 30 years of age I was always on the run. Either locked up in psych units, in prison or on remand. I had to relearn my life again.
When I was sentenced the second time I was sent into a detox facility before Parry. A secure place with locked doors and bars on the windows. The Doctor there said to me ‘if you carry on this path, you won’t see another five years. You will be dead by the time you’re 25’. I thought it was just a scare tactic and kinda took it on the chin. But one year later when I was in prison, I was invited into a Bible study and because I had nothing else to do, I went.
The study leader took me aside and said ‘bro, I don’t know if this means anything, but I was given the number 5 for you”. I didn’t say anything at that time but afterwards, alone in my cell I remembered what the detox doctor had said. He gave me 5 years to live. I was anxious and couldn’t sleep. The following day I rang the Christian leader and asked him about the significance of the number 5. When I told him my story, he said it could be God telling me that if I didn’t make a decision to follow Jesus, I could be carried out of prison in a coffin before my sentence was up. I was one of those people who committed fully and was not into having a foot in both camps. This was a decision I needed to take time to think about. Prison was not the best place to become a Christian; there was a lot of stuff going on and a lot of temptations.
Six months later I made the decision. I gave my heart to the Lord”.
Part 2
“Prison back then was a great place to detox, and I can say that prison saved my life. If I had stayed any longer in the community, I knew I could have overdosed or been shot or killed. Prison forced me to reset my life. There was still a lot of drug psychosis going on, but I started having positive people speak life into me.
A long serving inmate invited me to the Bible study, although it was the good people that attracted me and not the Bible or Jesus. I wanted to change my environment and the people around me. I had tried everything else and thought maybe this was the way to go. I wanted to one day get married and have children, so I needed to learn how to treat a woman. I thought if I hung around those good people I might become like them. Hanging out with criminals had brought a life of crime, so if I did the opposite I might learn from them and perhaps form a business plan to become rich and famous.
The Bible study leaders were patient; allowed me to ask many questions and gave me time to think about what I was doing.
Six months later I felt I was ready to ask Jesus into my life. As I was led through the prayer of repentance nothing supernatural happened. Jesus came into my scarred and broken life, but there were no angels flying around and I didn’t get goose bumps. Though what did happen for the first time ever in my life, I felt convicted.
If I swore at the prison guard, or if I started to get angry, I tried to pull back. If I was offered drugs or porn, I would say no. In the world if I knew it was wrong, I didn’t care, but now I did care because Jesus was in me.
The prison had to approve parole so I could be Baptised. This took about 12 months. They wanted to put a prison warden in with me, but by then I had formed a good relationship with my Christian leaders and sponsors, and they were trusted to look after me.
I was told that parole was granted as an opportunity for me to prove to them I was a changed man. That hit me hard. They knew only of my past and not of my future. I wanted to live a lifestyle according to what God wanted for me.
Every day was a battle. I did get into some fights. Once I jumped up on the roof and protested and was sent to solitary confinement. My parole was stopped because I was doing what I shouldn’t be doing. It was frustrating and I felt I was under the microscope. I was still working my faith out. My spirit was renewed but I had to learn to hammer my flesh into obedience. I knew it would take time, learning obedience took a long time. I had to learn to speak the word of God out into situations! When I did, I learnt the situation could change in seconds. It was powerful.
2 Corinthians 10:5 “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”
In the remaining 3.5 years of my sentence, I was privileged to be discipled and taught about each book in the Bible.
As I read positive books and trialled new ideas, I watched my whole life change. I was not involved in drugs or so many fights. When my cell was searched, they found nothing. I was clean. My hands were lifted high to our Holy God.
So many people thought I was using Christianity as a crutch, and later said they thought I could never change, but I was committed to the God who gave me life and freedom. I couldn’t do it on my own, but I could do it in His strength.
After release I continued to be discipled for several years, joined a church, a home group and became active in the community. It was all a new experience for me. I had so much to learn and changing the patterns of a lifetime would take time. There were many times I blundered, and it was only by the grace of God that I didn’t end up back in prison.
Having no money was hard. Working long hours for little return was difficult to get my head around. I found the stigma that went with a prison sentence wasn’t easy. In my old life the crimes and jail time gave me a certain bravado and identity.
I’d never held down a job before, I had always been my own agent. Why work for someone when I could make more money in one hour. It took me years to stop ripping off insurance companies and other outfits, but I was trying to walk with God. I learnt if I was doing it wrong before the Lord, and if I didn’t listen to Him, He would bring it out in the public.
I met my future wife at a home group. I was still dealing with my anger and learning about boundaries. I was extremely violent towards my wife and although I truly cared for her, I allowed this angry side to come out. I knew if I continued to be violent, I would lose her but just couldn’t understand it or always control it.
When I met this petite beautiful Christian lady who had never done drugs, never been to prison, and had a whole different lifestyle than me, I couldn’t understand her. How could this good person I had fallen in love with, make me so angry. I thought I would show her what life was really all about, but it wasn’t like that. It was my broken dark world that I was showing her.
One day she sat me down and said she knew the anger was not the real me. She thought it came from a deeper hurt that needed to be dealt with. I thought that for her to care in such a genuine way, she must love me. She wanted to see the real Adrian come out and not the old one. People told her I was the devil from hell, don’t go near him. He says he’s a Christian but look at the way he’s acting.
Now I am a very strong advocate for educating churches not to judge a book by its cover. When someone gives their heart to the Lord, don’t expect them to be perfect straight away cause it won’t happen.
I was told that when I came out of jail people would want to hear my Christian testimony. I was advised to wait and build a solid Christian foundation before I shared. ‘The first ones to judge when you mess up will be Christians. Watch what you say and do because if anything happens the church will attack you’ I was told. This happened when I relapsed after we married and had 3 beautiful daughters.
I took marriage as a long-term commitment and even though we split up for a time, I was dedicated and faithful to her and to my babies. The dream of the house on the beach, with a wife and kids became a thorn in my side.
I relapsed when I felt I had failed my marriage. I couldn’t provide for my wife and kids the way I wanted to. I felt I was getting older with a lovely wife and beautiful kids, but I had nothing. The system kept holding me accountable for my convictions and I couldn’t get work. I wanted to become an alcohol and drug counsellor, and found my way was blocked. I was angry, without hope and went back to what I knew – gangs and meth. Six months later, I knew I had to get out because it brought the darkness again. I did not want to go down that track.
I came to realise the hand of God on my life. If I had not spent all those years in prison, I might have fathered other children and even taught them what I learnt as a child. O I might be dead. Detox and rehab never worked for me. I needed to be locked away in prison.
Prison taught me to grow up fast. I had my first joint at 14 and that’s when my emotional growth and maturity stopped. I was 30 when I gave the drugs up, but my mind was still that of a 14 or15-year-old boy.
My girls are grown up now. I am living with my beautiful wife. I always dreamed of having a wife and kids, but I was not the man who could make that happen on my own.
God changed me from the inside out and that change has taken a long time. He taught me how to love, how to have relationships and how to become the man I was created to be. Today, I have the family I once dreamed of. I am blessed beyond words”.
Part 3
“Once I became a Christian and was Baptised, the life I led was not what God wanted for me. He was leading me and placing people around me who were loyal, patient and positive, but that didn’t mean I got everything right from then on. I made so many mistakes along the way. But God never gave up on me.
What I never imagined was how Jesus would take my life of brokenness, anger and the consequences and use it for His good.
I had to learn about full surrender. Not two feet in His camp and half my knee on the other side.
Once out of prison I wanted to know all about Jesus. I had so much to learn. I had to relearn how to act, words to use, and how to behave. I had no vision of doing missionary work or anything like that and after some long hard years, I wanted to settle down and actually do nothing.
As I got to know Jesus, read the word, go to church and home groups and formed relationships, people started to prophecy over me. Things were starting to get real, but I wasn’t ready. I had some growing up to do.
I always helped when mates got out of prison, picking them up and taking them to rehab or their home but all I really wanted to do was get married, have kids and chill out.
I had lived a colourful lifestyle but even prison life was a ticking time bomb. No one knows what will happen and I had to always be ready.
If life was good, I found myself sabotaging the very things that were good for me. I had spent so many years living on the edge, never knowing what was coming next, that I found a quiet life, unfamiliar. I wanted to return to that edgy world because it was what I knew. I really struggled to settle into the very life I dreamed of.
God needed to work on my heart before He could do anything. I was all or nothing. If you go to rehab you go for a reason. If you go to church and want to get involved with God, then do it and don’t muck around sort of personality.
I wanted to get married but didn’t even know what that would look like. I couldn’t get work because of my criminal convictions. I was high profile and life was a struggle.
Lifeway Bible college was suggested so I went there in 2001. I was still struggling with anger and lust but people who believed in me sponsored me and paid for me to go.
I hated the months there, but it was a great help. The 100 ways army was very strict, but I believed that was where God wanted me to be.
I wasn’t ready when I did get married because I was still learning about respect and how the behave. She was all I dreamed of and fulfilled all that had been prophesied, but I put her through hell on earth. It has taken me 24 years to learn how to treat her as God intended.
I was accepting invitations to go places and speak about my Christian journey, but at home my wife and family knew me as a madman. I might be speaking the words but my behaviour at home was the opposite. I advocate now for churches to ring the wives up before they invite the speaker.
I had been married about 10 years when I started speaking out at places and favoured men’s groups. Even then I had to be careful speaking about marriage as my marriage wasn’t good.
Slowly I started building relationships. I had to learn to behave so people could trust me. The Police talked to me about the importance of reputation. ‘People hear you, but they want to see what you do, and how you do it’. My response was ‘people kept judging me on my past’. They said ‘that will happen anyway. Some people will remember the past and judge you and you can’t control that. What you can control is your future’.
I took that on board and had to address my attitude to authority in my own life. I hated being told what to do by anyone, so I needed serious help in that area.
The 2 books I have written reflect my struggle and growth. I wrote ’Double Vision’ and then in 2010 ‘Second Chance’.
Relationships formed within the local community, Health New Zealand, plus Addiction Services. I got to know those involved, they started to work with me and get to know me and what I now represent.
It has taken 20 years and I’m still on the journey. I continue to be very careful what I say and do around people. I’m not only still under the microscope, I represent God.
I’m humbled when I’m honoured for being part of this process to help and encourage others and walk with them. It shocks me still how well known I am.
I’m now 55 and honoured to sit in on interview panels of Health New Zealand interviewing clinicians. Only God can do this stuff.
Running recovery groups is a big part of my life, I have found out one of my God given strengths is working with people. I can relate to them and talk their language.
I have wondered where this is going to lead me. Mental Health and Addictions is important, but drawing on my past the Trauma Based Recovery comes before that. I don’t focus just on addictions, but on the reasons for these addictions. I can relate to these guys coming out of prison who have done all the programs but still have their childhood trauma to deal with that has set up antisocial behaviour patterns. If the person hasn’t dealt with the cause, then anything might trigger them again. I tell them they are just one step away from going back inside. It’s really hard for most to be vulnerable. The program is offered to anyonel coming out of prison, not just Christians.
My job is to get the person to open up and feel safe enough to face some often-horrific memories and if they need additional help, I refer them on.
Last year I started up this Trauma Recovery program to help inmates coming out of prison and doors have opened. DHB want me to talk with them and their clinicians. Other organisations want me to talk with their kaimahi (employees and key workers). Health New Zealand, NGO’s, probation and other groups have been waiting to see this pilot program approved so they can introduce it.
People can see over the years, I may have been up and down, but I have admitted what I have done and taken responsibility for my actions. I have stayed there and those who now know me know my heart for helping others is genuine. Thats how my reputation has been secured.
The way God has used all the things I have done for His good brings me to my knees. He has taken my past and given me the mana to reach inmates and help them.
God has been patient and faithful and although I never deserve it, He is giving me back all the years the locusts have stolen. (Joel 2:25)
I live for and die for Jesus. My goal is to help as many inmates as possible, worldwide especially those on death row, who are like I was. Chained to the past and unable to break free on their own.
My heart is to see inmates given the opportunity to understand what has shaped their lives, deal with the past and discover that a different future is possible through Jesus.
I am only here because God has work for me to do”.
Hebrews 12:1 “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”.