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Brat Camp

James

Age: 17

Before spending time at Redcliff, James lived with his parents and youngest sister in Marlow, Bucks in a nice middle-class neighbourhood in a home with a swimming pool. Following in his father's footsteps he was passionate about cars, he has had a privileged upbringing and had already lived and travelled a lot abroad with his family, including stays in Germany, South Africa and New Mexico.

James' problem started with his cannabis use, a habit strongly disapproved of by his parents. It led to increasingly abusive clashes between him and his mother and father. On one occasion they called the police to the house.

At Redcliff James clashed with Fran. After graduating from the programme, James returned to England and, having decided not to smoke dope, he noticed that his eye-hand coordination have improved. He no longer wanted to become a mechanic and said he wanted to make his father proud and go to university to study engineering.

James' problem started with his cannabis use, a habit strongly disapproved of by his parents. It has led to increasingly abusive clashes between him and his mother and father. On one occasion they called the police to the house.

One year later, James is still working for his A-levels and he has managed to hold down a job as a swimming instructor with his mum. He remains drugs free and he has a better relationship with his parents. He will be going with them to Sri Lanka to help with the Tsunami relief operation. He may be teaching swimming to children there. The mother and son who couldn't even talk, are now working together.

Talking about his feelings when he first arrived at Redcliff, James says, 'It was just like why the fuck did I let myself in for this? How did I let myself get convinced to go and do this, this is the stupidest thing I've ever done.'

Before Brat Camp, James would never have put up with drugs testing, now he accepts it because of his parents' worries. And many of the results of Brat Camp are just a little more fun. The publicity from the show has made him into a national teen heartthrob.