From Grange Hill to gangsta guns

He was once acclaimed as one of the brightest young stars in British television.

Every role Ashley Walters took seemed to win more plaudits than the last. When the young man starred in a landmark BBC production he was hailed as typical of a bold new generation. One critic, celebrating his work, enthused: "Young talent abounds."

But anyone who admired him in the children's soap Grange Hill, as well as several high-quality TV dramas, would not have recognised the man who walked from the woodpanelled dock at Southwark Crown Court to jail this week, his head bowed in remorse. Eight months after being caught in central London carrying a loaded revolver stuffed in a sock, Walters - who had undergone a startling transformation to become the swaggering Asher D of the notorious garage group So Solid Crew - was warned he will receive a substantial prison term when he is sentenced on 23 March.

Following a succession of shootings and violent incidents surrounding the 30-strong group, Walters will be the first of them to be convicted and sent to jail. It is a dizzying fall from grace for a young man who seemed to be on the cusp of a glittering career. But it is also a disturbing story of our times.

A young man - with infinitely more advantages than most - thought he could carry a gun with the same level of nonchalance that most of us would carry a mobile phone. Above all, it is a damning condemnation of morals that prevail in parts of London today.

Fans of So Solid Crew enter a world of urban deprivation and menace, in which the values, beliefs and assumptions of decent society do not apply. It is a place where young men live fast and die young, shoot first and prize wealth above all things. It is the posturing and nihilism of America's gangsta rappers horribly transported into modern-day Britain.

Walters moved into that world by choice. But he was destined for something better. He has been fiercely reluctant to talk about his home life but we know that he came from a relatively prosperous middle-class family.

His mother works for a local authority as a personnel officer. Some of his close relatives are regular churchgoers and he was supported by an adoring grandmother who hailed from Guyana.

Of his father, he has said: "My dad . . . I don't know my dad. He's a different guy, I don't really chat about him much. I have five half-brothers on my dad's side, little kids. I try to look after them." He had positive influences and role models. He should have known better.

As a boy, he spent weekends with his grandmother Carmel at her three-bedroom maisonette in Peckham. He played in and around the flats, which were built in the Seventies on the bank of a disused canal leading to Surrey Docks. The area was surrounded by green parkland and trees.

Carmel had three grandsons but it was Walters that neighbours remembered most.

Karen Sullivan, 38, recalled: "I saw him visiting his grandmother every Sunday and they would go to church with his two other brothers. He was a very nice and considerate boy, and we are shocked to hear of the trouble he has found himself in."

Landscape gardener James Sullivan, 17, added: "Ashley was always the bright one around here - the one who was going places."

He was seven when his mother began taking him to the world-famous Sylvia Young Theatre School in Marylebone, the alma mater for such bright talents as Nick Berry, Tamsin Outhwaite, Perry Fenwick, Emma Bunton, Denise Van Outen, Melanie Blatt from All Saints, and Samantha Janus.

Teachers at the school's special Saturday sessions soon began saying he showed considerable talent, praise indeed in such a showbiz hothouse.

Sylvia Young herself was struck by how polite he was, saying: "He was always very well mannered. This was a boy I have never heard a single bad word about. He was a rather reserved boy. He would come to classes with his mother at first and then, as he got older, he would come alone."

Walters's progress was such that, by 13, he was being considered for professional parts. His agents are still Rossmore, an offshoot of the theatre school. Mrs Young said: "He always worked very professionally as an adult. Everyone saw him as extremely talented and a very nice guy."

His acting career soon took off. At 13 he first landed roles in the long-running drama series Grange Hill.

In Walters's first taste of fame, he played Andy Phillips, a school tearaway, for two episodes. He also won coveted parts in three episodes of The Bill.

But his career skyrocketed when he landed the role of Stefan in the BBC TV film Storm Damage. It starred acclaimed Shakespearian actor Adrian Lester and actor/playwright Lennie James, who wrote the autobiographical account of life in a south London children's home. James considered Walters to be an outstanding talent.

Storm Damage was nominated for a Bafta for Best Single Drama, and won Best Single Drama in the Royal Television Society Awards in 2001.

The young man's next role was also high profile, playing Stephen Lawrence's brother Stuart in the criticallyacclaimed docudrama, The Stephen Lawrence Story. The film was directed by Paul Greengrass, who went on to make the controversial Bloody Sunday film.

Walters teamed up again with Adrian Lester in Born Romantic in 2000. The comedy, which also starred Jane Horrocks, centred on a salsa dance club. It was hailed - and so was Walters. It seemed inevitable that he would become a massive star.

But now his life was to change. Walters took a fateful decision.

Throughout his nascent acting career he had been performing with friends who had by now formed So Solid Crew. They gained their early following in little-known underground clubs but, with the success of their first No 1 single 21 Seconds, Walters decided to quit acting to concentrate on the collective, as it is known. It was a decision that brought him fame and great riches - astonishingly, the group was recently estimated to be worth £3million - but it also set him on the road to jail.

To understand why he thought carrying a gun during a routine trip to central London with his girlfriend was not out of the ordinary - let alone unlawful - it is important to examine the scene he had become a part of.

The driving force behind So Solid Crew is Dwayne Vincent, 22, known as Megaman. After leaving school at 16, Megaman described his late teens as "hustling" on the streets and making ends meet selling marijuana on Battersea's Winstanley Estate.

He set up a sound system like the ones that tour the capital - Mystery, One Love and Killiwatt - and played gigs at parties, clubs and carnivals with his father and a friend called MC Romeo. The sound system outfit gradually gathered more equipment until they were able to set up a studio and record songs.

At the same time, he promoted and MC-d at garage and jungle parties like Garage Delight at the Colosseum and Chunnel Club. He began putting what was to become So Solid Crew's gold graffiti-style logo on flyers. Vincent launched So Solid Crew as a way of having fun with a sound system at the Notting Hill carnival but then took the group into clubs and onto pirate radio stations.

An entrepreneur for our times had been born. But behind the music was the anarchy of London street life.

Vincent spent four months on an attempted murder charge before being acquitted. He had set the chaotic tone that others would follow. So Solid Crew became a focus for violence. Last year one member, Mark Oseitutu (stage name Neutrino), was shot in the leg during a scuffle outside a nightclub.

The month before, Darren Weir, also known as Skat D, had escaped a prison sentence but was fined £1,500 after admitting breaking the jaw of a 16-year-old fan who had spurned his sexual advances. Walters became involved in the trouble, too. Between them, he and crew member MC Harvey received 29 stitches in the summer of 1999 after being assaulted and shot at. There was also violence at MC Romeo's 21st birthday party at the Astoria club in Charing Cross Road, which ended with two men in hospital suffering from gunshot wounds.

Throughout this mayhem, Walters insisted that they abhor the violence. Four months ago he cited jealously as an explanation, saying: "A lot of people are trying to follow us. People that we don't want to follow us. They want to do bad things to us. We had a talent and we put ourselves in the position where we can excel - fast. And we did it. And people hate a man for that. I don't mean just words. They hate enough to do things to hurt you."

But Vincent has remained philosophical about it. Last week, he told documentary makers from the BBC's First Sight programme: "We have been around this from way back; shootings and people getting killed and stabbings and girls getting involved by their guys passing gatts [guns]. Shootings are normal and we expect them to happen."

He claimed the group merely mirrored what happened in London's deprived estates, adding: "People say that So Solid Crew is the cause of it. We are talking about gun crime and violence, and we highlight to the public and the media that you neglected the situation."

He boasted that it "takes someone with guts" to admit they are willing to carry a gun, adding: "If you don't want your kids to hear about it, stop what is going on in the ghetto so there is something else to talk about."

Vincent won't change his stance just because one of the founders of the group is facing a prison sentence. But his bravado also masks the sorry fact that So Solid Crew have backed themselves into a corner. Whatever they claim, they have actually built up an audience that expects a steady diet of guns and violent talk. Feeding that is massively lucrative and promises to be more so.

They have two record production labels - So Solid Beats and Paper Money - and are about to launch their own line in clothes.

The band was instrumental in setting up the pirate radio station Delight FM.

They wear a hundred weight of gold jewellery, and five of the crew have bought luxury Audi TT sportscars. They have investments in property as well.

But, having gone this far, they can't go back. How much of their empire would survive if they changed tack and said "stop the violence"?

Not much, probably, and would any of their hardcore fans accept the change?

The sad fact is that Walters's conviction says nothing of any significance to his friends and to his fans. All he was doing was carrying a gun and, in the world they inhabit - where young men shoot at the slightest provocation - there was nothing remarkable about that.

Walters left his world of promise for their world. At that moment his downfall was assured.

? Additional reporting by Anthony France.

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