A surprising new way of helping
young offenders is being tried
in Yorkshire. More surprisingly
still, it seems to work
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By aNGELa NEUSTa TTER
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On the face of it, Danny Marshall’s is a bit of a Billy
Elliot story. He is a working-class Yorkshire lad from
a community where dance is not something boys take
up if they want to be seen as real men. But there the
similarity ends. Danny is the son of a criminal who
was in and out of prison during Danny’s childhood.
His mother struggled to protect Danny and his siblings
from going wrong, but by his early teens Danny had
started “dropping out of school, getting into fights,
street crime and all sorts. It broke my mum’s heart
seeing me in the cells, wearing electronic tags, fol-
lowing in my dad’s footsteps.”
And so it would probably have gone on had Danny
been sent to prison as expected when, aged 15, he ap-
peared in court yet again. Instead, to his amazement,
he was sentenced to dance.
Sentenced to
dance
Read the full story of how 17-year-old Danny turned
From offender to
from offender to dancer in the December issue of
teacher: Danny
Reader’s Digest. And click here to see Danny and
Marshall back at the
others from the Bradford Academy dancing.
Bradford Academy
photographed by lorne campbell/guzelian
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