Portsmouth, UK · Speaker · Mentor · Hybrid Athlete
I rebuilt my life because I wanted to.
I help others because I can.
Prison. CPTSD. Fatherhood. Recovery. Education. Endurance. I use the truth of what I have lived, and what I have learned, to help people change what happens next.
Not a guru. Not a clinician. Lived experience, qualifications and real work.
Six ways to work with me.
Keynotes and speaking
Serious, honest talks that move a room. Mental health, resilience, recovery and behaviour change.
Enquire →Schools and colleges
Sessions on identity, knife risk, choices and beliefs. Direct enough for teenagers to actually listen.
Enquire →Prisons, probation and recovery
Peer-mentor grounded delivery for wings, groups and recovery services. Done the work inside and out.
Enquire →One-to-one mentoring and coaching
Structured support for people rebuilding after prison, mental health struggles, recovery challenges or losing direction.
Enquire →Corporate wellbeing and resilience
Wellbeing sessions that respect the audience. No filler. Real tools for real pressure.
Enquire →Media, campaigns and brand collaborations
Interviews, podcasts, documentaries, campaign work and considered brand collaborations.
Enquire →
I was the black sheep of my family. Now I'm the GOAT.
Left school with nothing. Violence at home and school. Expulsion, homelessness, and a father young.
Built a tattoo career, ran Creative Ink for around eleven years, became the youngest Chairman of the British Tattoo Artists Federation, and appeared on BBC One's The One Show.
Diagnosed with CPTSD in 2010. Founded Sidekick Initiative in 2019. Prison from 2023 to 2025. Inside, worked as an education, neurodiversity and recovery mentor with a real caseload. Released on 31 July 2025, rebuilt, and now running the next chapter in public.
Challenges create attention.
Conversations create change.
Completed
- DoneGoggins 4×4×48March 2026
- DoneNational Three Peaks6 June 2026
- DoneSidekick 4×4×7218–21 June 2026
Three tests. One month. One reason.
Three back-to-back tests across a single month, built to hold attention on suicide awareness and give people a reason to talk, to listen and to act. All stages are planned and subject to final logistics.
- Stage 1 · Beginning 1 September 2026 (planned)Six Peaks
A six-peak endurance challenge opening the September campaign. Exact route details to be confirmed.
- Stage 2 · Approximately nine days later (planned)4×4×96
Four miles every four hours for ninety-six hours. Four full days on the clock.
- Stage 3 · End of September 2026 (planned)Welsh 3000s
All fifteen Welsh peaks over 3,000 feet, targeted inside 20 to 24 hours.
Rob is not fundraising through the challenges. The point is attention, so people talk, listen and act.
Full challenge log →Cell to Summit is not a slogan.
It is the life I had to rebuild.
Keynotes, workshops and sessions for schools, colleges, prisons, probation, recovery services, businesses and community organisations across the UK.
Book Rob to Speak- Cell to Summit→
- Mental health and recovery→
- Identity, beliefs and behaviour change→
- Discipline over motivation→
- Structure, action and follow-through→
- Fatherhood, accountability and rebuilding→
- Community leadership and lived experience→
- Schools: knife risk, choices and identity→
- Prisons and recovery: peer mentoring and realistic change→
Train with me.
Founding places open.
Strength, endurance, structure and accountability. Eight weeks of coached work with Rob for adults who want to train properly and follow through.
For adults. Suits beginners, returners, first-time runners, gym users and people preparing for a physical challenge. Not elite-only. Not clinical care.
Rob is an NVQ Level 3 Personal Trainer and TQUK Level 3 qualified educator. This is coaching, not clinical care. Rob is not a dietitian, nutritionist, physiotherapist or therapist.
real support real conversations
Rob founded Sidekick Initiative in 2019 as a lived-experience mental health and recovery movement, and restarted it in 2026 with more clarity and more action. Sidekick is its own organisation with its own home online.
Speaking, workshops, mentoring and coaching are Rob's paid professional work, booked through this site. Sidekick Initiative is a separate community organisation Rob founded, with its own website and its own free community support.
Visit sidekickinitiative.org →Lived experience,
backed by the work.
- TQUK Level 3 Award in Education and Training
- NVQ Level 3 Personal Trainer
- English Level 2
- Maths Level 2
- Mentoring Level 1 and Level 2
- CGL Peer Mentor Passport
- Prison Peer Mentor Passport
- Speaker Bootcamp Level 1
- Asset-Based Community Development
- Drug Awareness (accredited)
- Safeguarding training
- Access to Higher Education Level 3 subjects
BBC One: The One Show
QA Hospital Radio
Community Schwartz Round (11 June 2026)
Founder of Sidekick Initiative
If it matters, let's talk.
Speaking, schools, prisons and probation, corporate wellbeing, mentoring, media and brand collaborations. One form, one honest reply.