Paul is so pleased to be working with Kids Inspire again and on this special screening of the film based on his life. He then attended lessons to learn how to read and write in his 20s, because he felt it would aid his career as a boxer.

Big Boys Don’t Cry review – a former abuse victim confronts

These were the first sort of serious role models that I found weren’t trying to bugger me or beat me up.” he recalls. He left school at 14 and started work on a veg stall in Romford market. He looked set to become a professional boxer and was about to sign a contract at the age of 18, when a severe accident meant that he technically died from loss of blood. The next few years were a struggle. Sadly Pino died in 1968. However, Paul is thrilled to meet a half brother on his dad’s side. His half brother Frankie Pironi, 62, lives in Southend and is one of three siblings Pino had with an Irish Catholic woman. Unbelievably, the two men discover they went to the same school and were there at the same time. Paul Connolly: Not Normal: The Uncensored Account of an Extraordinary True Life Story, 2018. ISBN 978-1-982908-71-3 That’s no revenge; your life is over, your revenge should be to go on and have a happy family and to be a successful man and prove these people wrong.”

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Frankie Pironi and his brother Paul Connolly (Credit: Wall To Wall Productions/ITV) Long Lost Family series 13

Paul Connolly put out with the rubbish as a baby Long Lost Family Paul Connolly put out with the rubbish as a baby

Directed by Steve Crowhurst , who also wrote the script. He made the film under the title Six from Eight . Crowhurst had already taken on Connolly's story in the short film of the same name, which he presented in 2019, in October 2019 in front of the Royal Society of Arts. She will be joined by the author and inspiration behind the film, Paul Connolly, the chief executive and clinical director of Kids Inspire, Sue Bell OBE, Olivier award-winning actress and patron of the charity, Ruthie Henshall, and the film’s executive producer, Richard Hart. The boys were subjected to horrific assaults from a gang of paedophiles who would enter the dormitories at night.It came out, after certain reporting restrictions were lifted at the Old Bailey, that St Leonard's was not just a home for children without a place to go, but paedophiles. He was taken to St Leonard's Children's Home in Hornchurch where he suffered mental and physical abuse, and remembers men 'climbing the fire escape' to rape children. He became involved with Operation Mapperton to uncover the child abuse that took place at the children's home.