So, the SWAT team turns up, all tooled up and kitted out like they’re about to take down Osama bin Laden, and what am I doing? Me, I’m inside bingeing on Line of Duty.

Ironic that, don’t you think?

I didn’t even know they were there until someone kicked the door in and started shouting like a maniac. Surreal or what, when I was in the middle of watching the same scene, but scared the s*** out of me when I got that this was really happening.

I was shoved facedown on the carpet, hands wrenched up behind me, knee in the back, punch in the head. That’s right, one of them snuck a pop and it made me see stars. Some Sherlock in a suit read me my rights, so I knew it was about the arson, and off we went.

To be honest, after all the tension and waiting and wondering, it was almost a relief when they stuffed me in the back of a car and drove off. I couldn’t wave goodbye to the audience who’d gathered because I was cuffed, but I looked at them good and hard, letting them know to stay away from my ma. I wished someone would cart her off to the whacky shack, she’d have been safer there.

So, they had me, fair and square. I wasn’t planning on making out they’d got the wrong bloke, DNA would prove I was there, but when I realized I was up on a charge of attempted murder as well as arson, well, I couldn’t cop for that too. I didn’t know you was there, if I had I wouldn’t have done it, so nothing intentional about it. It was an accident. A bad one, I admit, and one I really wish hadn’t happened, but that’s what it was.

I needed a brief to help sort it out, but people like me get what we’re given and the ambulance chaser who bobbed up for me had me down as guilty even before he came through the door. I had a proper struggle with him—it’s no fun dealing with a***holes and he was one of the biggest.

I’m remanded in custody and soon after, surprise, surprise, I get a visit from BJ warning me to keep my mouth shut about the PC who’d wanted it done. I told him I wasn’t planning on blabbing, but it might be in everyone’s interest if someone made the attempted murder rap go away.

No one did. I just got a reminder that my old lady had no protection now so it would be in her best interests if I acted wise. My answer was to say I understood loud and clear, but no way was I going to plead guilty to something I didn’t do.