British ex-prison officer mother sends spoilt son, 17, who 'had everything from ski trips, to a pony

The ex-prison officer mother of a tearaway teenager begged producers to lock up her son in one of America's toughest jails for a radical TV experiment. 

Hugh Connell, from the small town of Market Harborough in Leicestershire, was one of eight youths that spent a week inside Florida's Brevard County Jail for a Channel 4 documentary.

His mother Helen says she rang the programme makers in tears as she pleaded with them to allow her son to take part telling them: 'I pay you to take him.'

The youngster, 17, has been excluded from school, was arrested when he was 16 for carrying a machete, used to get into fights, and left education without a single GCSE to his name.



She told the documentary that her son 'doesn't like being told what to do', but lives a 'charmed life' going skiing every year, and also owns a pony and a motorbike, said she was desperate for him to take part.

Ms Connell, a prison officer in her twenties, who is divorced from Hugh's father, said the 17-year-old 'had everything, including two parents who adore him' but still found himself in trouble with the law.

And life on the inside proved tough for Hugh, who broke down in tears after just the first day of the week long experiment. 

Ms Connell, 52, told the Daily Telegraph that when she rang producers: 'I said, ‘I’ll pay you to take him.

'I didn’t know what else to do.'





MailOnline