Ashley Blake reveals his life story: Day One

Sep 3 2009 by Maureen Messent

When BBC Midlands Today presenter Ashley Blake was on screen, viewers saw a friendly, charming face. When he was found guilty of unlawful wounding and attempting to pervert the course of justice, the world was shocked to learn of a long list of previous convictions. Just before he was jailed, he told MAUREEN MESSENT of his childhood in inner city Birmingham and his early year of petty crime.

HE WAS 31 with a longish record of petty crime, the youngest of six mixed-race children born to an unmarried white woman in Lozells.

Yet here he was, on January 2 2001, reporting for work on the prestigious BBC evening news programme Midlands Today.

"I felt a bit of a fraud," said Ashley Blake, now 40, speaking just days before yesterday’s sentencing. "Very proud, of course, but amazed that a kid from my background could end up walking into Pebble Mill.

"I mean, Pebble Mill was the place I’d go as a youngster to be among the crowd watching Children In Need filmed, always trying to get within camera range."

They were a clamourous brood, the half-dozen born to cleaner Patricia May Stephenson, in Church Street, Lozells.

First two boys, then a gap, then three girls and, almost an after- thought, young Ashley.

Ask him now and he says his early years were happy enough.

But he keeps his voice neutral, always a signal with this man that he’s making the best of a possibly bad situation.

"I’ve since realised that my sisters protected me from the violence between my dad, Edgerton Blake, and mum.

"They’ve told me it wasn’t good.

"Dad left when I was about three or four. A man called George, also West Indian, came next – mum always liked black men.

"I considered him my real father.

"He was a Betterware salesman and he’d play games with me.

"Mum and he were together ten years but the relationship just came to an end. It was sad to see him go.