Alvone Maybury was orphaned at a young age and suffered a difficult upbringing before turning to the life of crime that led to yesterday's guilty verdict.

According to friends who spoke to The Royal Gazette during his spell on the run earlier this year, Maybury's mother died when he was young, and his father died when he was 16.

He never knew his father well, and was brought up in Government care.

No members of his family were present during the week-long trial that resulted in Maybury being convicted yesterday of firing a gun at gang rivals in Hamilton city centre last December.

However, a young woman who described herself as his ex-girlfriend supported him throughout the proceedings. She told The Royal Gazette after yesterday's verdict: "A lot of people don't know Alvone like I do. I know him on a very personal basis. He's had no support since he was nine years old. I do believe you should face up to your responsibilities, but he's had no parents, no family or friends. I just feel very bad for him because it's not the life he wants to live."

The woman declined to give her name.

According to The Royal Gazette archives, Maybury spent part of his upbringing at Observatory Cottage in Devonshire, which was a Government-run facility for troubled youths. He was one of five youngsters who ran away from the care home in 1999. Maybury, then aged 12, was described by Police as being just four feet tall, weighing 85 pounds and needing daily medication.

The Department of Child and Family Services later sent him to an overseas reform school. According to a Royal Gazette court report, Maybury described the institution as more like a prison than a school. At one point he lived in New Jersey before returning to Bermuda, where he engaged in regular brushes with the law and spent several stints in jail.

By January 2005, when he was 18, Maybury was in Magistrates' Court where he admitted breaking into a Devonshire home and stealing a laptop. In October of that year, 19-year-old Maybury admitted forging a cheque he stole from his godmother to buy groceries. In March 2007, he admitted assaulting Malisa Swan, the mother of his child, and smashing her cell phone.

The pair have a son, Amir, who is now aged three.

In May 2007, when he was 21, Maybury admitted having sex with a 14-year-old girl, and giving her chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease. He claimed he did not know the girl was underage.

In October that year, he was back in court admitting to throwing socks containing alcohol, cocaine, cannabis and a cell phone over the Westgate prison fence. He was caught after being spotted on CCTV and later crashing into a Police car.

Maybury was sentenced to a three-year prison term. Defence lawyer Kenrick James told Magistrates' Court at the time: "He seems to have had some hard knocks at a young age. However he is at a juncture and realises that he must change his life."

That did not happen, and by December last year, Maybury's life of crime had spiralled to even greater depths. Described by prosecutors as an associate of the 42 gang, Maybury filmed himself on his cell phone brandishing a gun while making threats to rivals Parkside.

Hours later, he used the gun to fire shots at rival gang members in central Hamilton. Police arrested him and seized his phone, and the gun videos ended up as a central plank of the evidence against him. He was homeless at the time of his arrest and was remanded into custody after a brief spell on the run following the charges against him.

Maybury was remanded back into custody after yesterday's verdict and has already made his views on life behind bars very clear. In a message on his Facebook page after escaping custody in July he wrote: "I ain't trying to go back to dat hell hole. They act like all of us there are dogs or something. I told them the other day what happens to a dog that's in a cage all day. When you let him out he ain't gonna kno how to act. I'm sick of eattin dinner at 4, or being lock down all day. I hope some one pops me in my face b4 they catch me."

Determined not to let him escape again, prison officers emblazoned Maybury's orange prison uniform with a large white diamond and escorted him away from Supreme Court amid a heavy security presence yesterday.

He will be sentenced at a later date.