'Horrifying car crash saved me from jail'

One time bad boy Greg Sumner was almost paralysed in a shocking drink-driving smash. Now he hopes to help others after the accident that left him unable to hug his children

- INTERVIEW BY LUISA METCALFE

When Greg Sumner was seriously injured in a car crash that left two people dead, he lost any movement in his body below his shoulders and his ability to hold his children close - not to mention his fast-paced life as a sharp-dressing, smooth-talking salesman.

Yet today, at 35, Greg still retains his old rogueish charm and a fierce determination to leave his mark on the world, starting with his memoir Every Cloud: Perspective is Everything.

His book took him five painstaking years to write using a special headset enabling him to spell out each word, letter by letter. It tells the story of how the 'old' Greg - a petty criminal with a violent streak - became the 'new' Greg, who is forced to think positive and be optimistic, making the best of his situation and trying to help others in the process.

He describes an unhappy and tumultuous childhood, first with his mother "who was a raging alcoholic," he says - and then after her death when he was seven, with his father Ian, a businessman and hotel owner in Chester.

EXPELLED

Greg hated school, got in with an older crowd and by the time he was 15 he was selling hard drugs. He had a stint in a behavioural unit before being expelled from school without getting his GCSEs.

Then when he got "way over his head" with his criminal activities, he was forced to leave Chester and move in with his brother James in Somerset.

But Greg continued to fight, sell drugs and steal cars, earning himself an electronic tag around his ankle, two driving bans and a nine month suspended sentence when police stopped him one night and found a taser in his glove compartment.