Former TV star Ashley Blake releases prison diaries

Former TV newsreader Ashley Blake, who was jailed for attacking a teenager with a wooden pole, has penned his prison diaries.

The 41-year-old ex-Midlands Today presenter has released a book called Ashley Blake Shining Bright Lights In Dark Places.

In the form of a daily prison diary, it explores the fall from grace of a successful television presenter and how a moment of madness left him a broken man.

Blake said: "As a journalist, I was compelled to write about my ordeal – at first it was a way of trying to make sense and to cope with the desperate situation I'd found myself in.

"This book is an absolutely true account of the dark places I visited in my mind, how I struggled with the loss of my liberty and how I survived in prison.

"Most people haven't been to jail and often wonder what's really going on behind those high, razor-wired walls. Ashley Blake, Shining Bright Lights In Dark Places gives a true insight into prison life."

Blake was jailed for two years at Birmingham Crown Court in September, 2009, for unlawful wounding and attempting to pervert the course of justice. It followed a night of violence at his Thai restaurant The Place 2B in Chester Road, Sutton Coldfield, in the early hours of January 25, 2009.

The restaurant was being used for an 18th birthday party and on the night Blake hit 17-year-old Greg Jones around the face with a patio umbrella pole.

The teenager needed 10 stitches and was permanently scarred by the attack. After the attack Blake tried to hide the pole from police. Birmingham Crown Court heard at the time of time of the attack up to 30 drunk people had thrown missiles including drinks glasses, ashtrays and garden furniture at the pub. "So, there I was enjoying a great TV career and a not-so successful restaurant business," he added. "I had a wonderful girlfriend whom I was sure to marry soon.

"I had a great group of friends who'd die for me and I for them. I was living the dream, then it all changed in a second, everything gone."

Blake, who was also a presenter on Watchdog and had won a Royal Television Society Award, was sacked by the BBC following his conviction. He was released last June after serving nine months of the two-year sentence.

Blake's co-accused Steven Sproule, 38, of Booths Farm Road, Great Barr, was jailed for 13 months after admitting actual bodily harm for punching teen Adam Finn.

After he was jailed, more than 750 people joined a series of Facebook groups campaigning for Blake to be freed from prison.

Blake was freed from Stafford Prison earlier this year under the home curfew system that allows prisoners serving sentences of between three months and four years to be freed up to four and a half months earlier than they would normally be the case.

The book launches on September 5.