Ex-Children's Laureate Wales Connor Allen grateful mum called police on him

BBC News

31-01-2025

Wales' former children's laureate says he is grateful his mum called the police on him at the age of 16 after he attacked her. Connor Allen is a poet, writer and actor and was Children's Laureate Wales from 2021 to 2023, but struggled during his teenage years. He pleaded guilty to assault, battery and grievous bodily harm in court but was given a second chance after an intervention by those closest to him.Connor has since turned his life around and is trying to inspire the next generation.
Connor, who was raised on a council estate in Newport, said the anger had been simmering during his teenage years.His dad was absent from his life and as a mixed-race teenager he often struggled to fit in."It was just my mum, a single mum, white mum, and my father is black Jamaican. So that absence for me growing up without a father but also without that 'blackness'," he said.He started getting in trouble with the police and it soon came to a head when he lashed out at his mum."We were arguing and shouting. My anger erupted on my mum. Obviously there's instant regret, but the action has already been done," he said.Looking back, Connor is full of admiration for her making that decision."She didn't know what was going to happen to me when the police took me. "But to have that courage to actually say 'something needs to happen because my son is off the rails,' I always look back at that courage."
Now 32, he still clearly remembers sitting in the courtroom facing his mum."Even though she was going through all that hurt she still pleaded with the judge," he said. His teachers at Lliswerry Comprehensive School had also seen his potential. Connor said he feels blessed that they fought for him to have a second chance.He said: "My mum, the teachers, they wrote a letter to the judge and asked for a suspended sentence. I look back at that period and think if it wasn't for the people who believed in me where would I have been?"Connor said it was "empowering" to have that support despite admitting what he did that night was "horrific"."To go through all of that and it culminating in you lashing out to have people at your lowest moment they still believe in you... that for me was huge," he said.
His love of writing came from reading books that his mum would buy him as a child.In particular, the Harry Potter series which allowed him to go into different worlds other than his own.He also took inspiration from the stories told in grime and rap music.That led him to write The Making of a Monster, a grime-theatre mash-up about growing up, working out his place in the world and the danger of a life spiralling out of control. Connor is currently writing a sequel Forgiveness of a Monster about finding forgiveness for himself, and his absent father."I always believe in second chances, If I can give that give of empowerment and belief then who knows what they can go on and achieve," he said.
You can hear Connor's interview on Books that Made Me with Lucy Owen on BBC Radio Wales at 18:30 GMT on Friday and then on Sounds