"I went to prison after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. My life could have turned out very differently"
“I’m lucky, really lucky, because it could have been a hell of a lot different.”
That is how Chris Coles looks at life right now. It really could have been very, very different and now he wants to share his story in the hope of helping others facing a difficult crossroads in life.
“Life has been a rollercoaster. A lot of ups and a lot of downs,” the 39-year-old said, sat on his living room sofa - behind him shelves filled with trophies from a very successful career as a bodybuilder.
One trophy, positioned on a shelf of its own, is the 2023 British Championship - the top prize for bodybuilding in Great Britain. Chris is proud of it, you can see that.
It’s a big win for a man from Mexborough who, after serving tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, ended up behind bars for involvement in drugs operations in Hull.
“I’d always planned to go into the military, but I had planned it to be later in life. But then 9/11 happened,” he said.
So at 17, Chris joins the army and it isn’t long before he finds himself in the Middle East as the US and UK sent soldiers to Iraq.
“I was one of the first 200 out there and we set up base camp in a town called Umm Qasr. It was a port town.
“While we got base camp set up, I was designated as a driver for a captain. I was his close protection. Once the bombs started going off in March 2003, we were out on the ground doing patrols locally in the villages. I was there for six months in Iraq. I was still 18-years-old.
“It teaches you to be a man very quickly.”
It is a lot of pressure for a young man, no matter how much you train. Suddenly, the safety of training camp back home is replaced with a foreign land and the very real chance you could die.
“We all felt like that at some point,” Chris said. “I was in Iraq for the first time and I heard the bombs going off. All of a sudden you can feel the truck shake and you think it’s an earthquake, so you open the hatch and all you could see was white flares and bombs. It was scary.
“It took me a few years after leaving the army to really come to terms with some of it. It takes a while to deal with it inside. I still have nightmares now. I woke up in the middle of the night recently shouting for something.
“I loved my military service, but it did set me up for a number of issues which I didn’t deal with myself and they didn’t help me.”
Chris left the army aged 23, found a job, then found another in Hull and moved to work for someone he knew.
“I got into a crowd of people up there,” he said. “They came in to where I worked and, at the time, I didn’t know who they were and I ended up going out with them one night and it spiralled out of control.
“I was involved in drugs, selling drugs, doing drugs and then there was a local police sting that ended up with nine or 10 of us arrested.”
Chris says he was charged with conspiracy to supply Class A drugs and possession of a firearm. He was sentenced in 2010, aged just 26.
“We ended up with 40 years between us in prison. I got five years and four months, but it was reduced to three years and eight months.”
Prison was a wake-up call.
“Whilst inside I studied personal training, nutrition and weightlifting,” Chris recalled. “You can look at it and say ‘this is life and I’ll be in and out for life’ or you can say ‘I don’t want to be here but I’m going to take something from the system while I can’.
“I knew that wasn’t the person I wanted to be - the person I didn’t want to be was the person inside the cell. That had never been me but for some reason I had turned into this person and I knew I didn’t want to be them.
“It all stemmed back to not dealing with things from the military. I resented the system. When you start to do that it is a difficult cycle to break and the best thing that happened to me then was going to prison. It saved me from myself.”
Most of Chris’ time inside was spent in Hull, before moving to an open prison in East Yorkshire shortly before his release.
“I was lucky enough to get a job ready for when I got out. I was there for a couple of years and I left and got a new job which is where I met my kids’ mum.”
Whilst the relationship didn’t work out, Chris says his children are a blessing and in 2018 he met his now-wife, Grace.
“I have a more chequered background and Grace is a lawyer but it works. When I start to break things down in life, I think the most influential thing has probably been her. That calming influence put me on the right path, made me speak to the right people.”
Modern day Chris has a career - working as a chef at Big Smoke in Rotherham - and has found a passion for bodybuilding.
“I’m really, really lucky because it could have been a hell of a lot different,” he said. “It started to spiral. I started wanting to compete and spent a lot of time in gyms with people doing that kind of thing.
“I started competing in 2022. I did a show in Manchester and finished second to another local guy. Then I swore to myself I’d come back and beat him.
“I did another show later that year and won that one, and then won another a week later. I then when to the British and I finished second to the same guy.
“In 2023, I did 10 shows which was tricky. I won six, finished fourth in two and second in two. The very last one of the year was the British nationals and I beat that guy finally who kept on beating me.”
It is a moment to be proud of. The years since Chris left the army had been so difficult - by his own admission - dealing with his mental health and poor decisions.
The father-of-three wishes he had someone to guide him after his left the military and some support to help him deal with things he’d seen and experienced.
“Someone reading this will be going through the same thing, grabbing a piece of it and then thinking ‘it relates to me’ and changing their life. If it helps just one individual then it’s served a purpose.”
He’d love to go back to Mexborough and the school he attended as a kid, speaking to youngsters about making the right choices and whilst he wants to push others to make those right choices he doesn’t feel any shame in what he’s been through.
“Chris now would look at Chris then and probably thank him,” he said.