Former Leeds drug dealer who started painting in prison is now successful artist

Kevin Devonport, who grew up in Swarcliffe and Seacroft, left school with no qualifications and got his first criminal conviction for shoplifting, aged 15.

Kevin, 49, joined the army aged 17 but started using cannabis and ecstasy and moved on to taking heroin after leaving the forces aged around 21.

He said he started dealing heroin to fund his £100-a-day habit and was jailed for four years in 1996 for possessing heroin with intent to supply.

He has been sentenced to a total of 24 years in prison for drug offences before turning his life around thanks to further education and art.

"It could be said that I was somewhat a career criminal," he said. "However, that is all now in the past."

In 2003 Kevin was jailed for two-and-a-half-years for drug offences.

And in 2008 he was jailed for 13-and-a-half-years for his part in a conspiracy to supply heroin after police seized 4.5 kilos of the drug.

Kevin started an Open University degree in sociology while serving that sentence and also discovered he could paint.

Kevin said he was in HMP Garth in Lancashire when he saw a 'lifer' in the art class painting the figure of a woman.

"The painting he was doing was awesome. I said to myself 'I'm going to be as good as you.'

"I set myself a personal goal to get to the level that lifer was at."

Whilst in prison, Kevin donated paintings to veterans' charity Care after Combat and they raised up to £1,000 each at auction.

His work won a national Koestler Award for arts in criminal justice

The annual Kosteltre Award sees prisons all over the UK submit ijnmates' work, which is exhibited at London's South Bank Centre.

Kevin came third in 2019 with his painting of rubbish.

After leaving his life of crime behind, Kevin now has an artist's studio at Assembly House studios in Armley.

Kevin, who now lives in Brotherton near Knottingley, was brought up in the Seacroft and Swarcliffe areas of east Leeds and went to Temple Moor High School in Halton.

He left school aged 15 with no qualifications and said he was a "little tearaway."

He was convicted of stealing clothes from a shop when he was 15 and was sentenced to a conditional discharge.

Kevin joined the army aged 17 and served as a Chieftain tank gunner in the First Royal Tank Regiment.

He saw active service in Northern Ireland before leaving the army aged 21.

Kevin said he had started going to raves in the early 1990s while serving in the army and started taking cannabis and ecstasy.

He moved back to Swarcliffe and started using heroin before starting to deal in the drug to pay for his £100 a day habit.