When a psychopath with a history of violence, drug addiction and copious prison sentences offers you a cup of tea, you inevitably think twice.
Lewis Raymond Taylor, 33, is the Psychopath Life Coach. Eight years ago he was convicted for the 11th time after punching a man so hard the victim had a mini-stroke and a bleed on his brain.
Less than a decade later, Lewis is the CEO of $25million life coaching business The Coaching Masters and became an overnight celebrity following the release of a Netflix documentary about his life.
Even so, standing in the lift of his fancy Canary Wharf apartment block, I remembered what Lewis told the show: ‘I always go too far. I’m always stamping on people’s heads. I will always kick a man when he’s down.’
His own mother called the former cocaine-sniffing thug ‘relentless’ and a ‘manipulator’.
Others have questioned whether he really is someone who’s turned his life around and is a determined entrepreneur, or whether he’s a cunning cult leader wearing the ‘deadliest disguise’ who is not to be trusted.
I gulped. The lift was well above 150ft now. I hoped I wouldn’t end the day being dangled from a balcony by a raging maniac.