Former Brechin bad boy Christian Matlock has turned the corner and moved to America to catch criminals.
As a youngster he was constantly in trouble in the Angus town and was fined £175 and ordered to pay £200 compensation by Forfar Sheriff Court in 2006 for assaulting a man who allegedly threatened to squirt his then girlfriend with a water pistol.
That criminal record meant the 6ft 2in, 18-stone, 22-year-old couldn’t get a job with the police in this country so instead he became the first UK citizen to get recruited as a gun-toting bounty hunter in the USA.
He’s only been in the job a couple of months but Christian has already had a gun pointed in his face, although he said he’s not phased by the possibility of dodging bullets.
“I wanted to do something different and I can’t join the police because I’ve got a criminal record so this is the next best thing for me,” he added.
“I love authority.
“I haven’t had a gun fired yet everything’s been fairly easy but I would love it if someone took a shot at me.”
Christian chases some of America’s most wanted as soon as they skip bail, wearing a bullet proof vest and armed with a Berretta .38 handgun and a Mossberg 500 12 gauge shotgun.
But despite his extensive training and bravado at the prospect of being fired upon, Christian doesn’t fancy the prospect of having to end the life of any of his targets.
“I’m trained to shoot to kill people and I will if necessary but I hope I never have to,” he said.
“If it comes to it I will, but I really hope it never does.”
Christian took his inspiration from TV show Dog The Bounty Hunter, which follows the exploits of real-life bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman and his family chasing down actual fugitives in the Hawaiian Islands.
He works as a nightclub bouncer in the tough district of Woodbridge, County Virginia, near the US capital Washington DC.
After initially using the job to fund his way through bail enforcement training, he still needs it to make sure he can keep hunting criminals but all that might be over after talks with TV producers.
Christian said, “I’ve had more issues at my other job. You get a lot of riff-raff in there but I’m used to that kind of trouble from home anyway.
“You don’t get paid until you catch someone. I use the other job as a way of funding what I’m doing because I only make about $500 a week.
“I’ve had three TV producers email me about it I guess I could be the Scottish or British version of Dog The Bounty Hunter.”
The former Andover Primary and Brechin High School pupil admitted he was a teenage tearaway in the town, where he was brought up as Christian Allday by his mum Linda.
After realising he was throwing his life away and being a “nightmare” by drinking, fighting and causing trouble for the police he decided to move to the States and turn his life around hunting down murderers, rapists and child molesters.
He tracked down his birth father Ricky Matlock, a retired American marine, and then changed his name because it “suits as a bounty hunter.”
Now Christian, who currently works for the National Bail Enforcers And Security Alliance of America, plans to set up his own company called Caledonia Bail Enforcement but he also wants to help kids closer to home.
Although he lives with his American girlfriend Christina Schwartz, Christian wants to come home at some point and set problem children back on the right track.
“I want to come back to Scotland and do talks with young people. I want to go for troubled kids and people who misbehave because that’s the kind of childhood I had.
“I want to tell them they can do something if they try. I want to help people back in Scotland.”