The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
From Brechin to the badlands
Michael Alexander speaks to American bounty hunter Christian Matlock, who retraces his Angus roots in a BBC Scotland documentary being screened next week
Driving along the highway in Virginia Beach on America’s Atlantic coast, Christian Matlock puts the Johnny Cash version of Ain’t No Grave – a gospel song about resurrection – on the car stereo and proclaims it the “theme song to my life”.
It’s an apt choice for the 6ft 2, tattoocovered 28-year-old, who could be a movie star auditioning for the role of a US bounty hunter.
But this former bad boy from Brechin is the real deal. And in a BBC Scotland documentary to be screened on Monday night, he credits his chaotic early life in Angus for giving him the skills to do the job he does now – hunting and apprehending often dangerous fugitives who have skipped bail.
“My past definitely helps because a lot of my job is being able to talk to people and somehow understand what they are going through at the time,” he explains.
“If they’ve got drug problems, drink problems, family problems, I can relate to a lot of that.
“In Scotland my life was heading in the wrong direction. I was doing weeklong drink and drug parties and a lot of ecstasy because there was nothing else to do. My run-ins with the police were getting more and more frequent.
“If I hadn’t got out I would probably be in jail.”
The fly-on-the- wall film, The Scottish Bounty Hunter, follows gun-toting Christian as he pursues fugitives on the run in the drug-ravaged lands of his adopted homeland in the north east of the USA.
The film delves below the stereotype of a bail enforcement agent to show the unique relationships he builds with some of the people he encounters, from offenders with drug addictions to their families striving to get back to normal lives.
It takes him through some of the most deprived areas of Virginia, where everyone he pursues is either a criminal, a suspect or simply at the end of their luck.
The film also follows him back to Brechin where he reflects on his youth and catches up with old friends, many of whom, he is emotional to discover, haven’t moved on from the lives they were living when he left.
And despite the seedy underworlds he now encounters on a daily basis, he is saddened to see how the Angus town has, in his words, “fallen apart” and become a “really sad” place in the years he’s been away.
The former Brechin High School pupil who was brought up as Christian Allday by his mother Lesley, reckons moving to America to find his father Ricky Matlock – a former Edzell-based American Marine – when he was 21 probably saved his life.
“I was at the point where I was getting into a lot of trouble in Scotland,” he explains in an interview from his home in Virginia Beach.
“I couldn’t find a job – plus I’d always thought Americans looked a lot cooler in the movies so I thought I’d give it a try.”
Christian fell into his new line of work by accident while working in security at a bar.
Another bail enforcement agent turned up looking for a man on the run, and before he knew it, he had paid $600 to enrol in a week-long bounty hunter school.
Today, Christian is contracted by bandsmen – moneylenders who offer to cover bail money for people who can’t afford it, in exchange for a 10% commission. If an accused fails to appear in court, the bandsman loses the entire sum – unless a bounty hunter can track the fugitive down.
Christian sometimes has to disguise his Scottish accent so he doesn’t get identified and insists he’s “not your typical bounty hunter” in other ways.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says. “Every boy, every man wants to have that gun and they want to be kicking in doors and being all tactical. It’s exciting being like that. But I prefer to be a more undercover detective kind of guy.”
Christian, who has been clean of drink and drugs for six years, sees the victims of the heroin epidemic every day in the area of Virginia where he lives.
Around 80% of his jobs involve fugitives with a background in drugs and more than 800 people in the state die from heroin or opiate overdoses every year. It’s a problem that’s worsening and Christian, who holds dual British and American citizenship, admits he feels sympathy for many of the people he is hunting down.
As someone whose life is potentially put at risk every time he steps out of the door, he accepts there may come a point when he no longer wants to live with the long, stressful, anti-social hours of the job. Just not yet.
“I am currently one of the longest serving bounty hunters but it’s not something anyone can do long term,” he says.
“I wouldn’t mind a normal life sometimes. It runs you thin. But I have tried to get out of it a couple of times and I can’t seem to stop doing it.”
I’d always thought Americans looked a lot cooler in the movies so I thought I’d give it a try