SAS: Who Dares Wins’ Ant Middleton says going to prison for attacking police officer is his ‘biggest failure’

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Former SAS: Who Dares Wins star Ant Middleton has admitted that spending time in prison for assault is his “biggest failure”.

In 2013, the former soldier was found guilty of the unlawful wounding of a police officer and common assault on another person outside a nightclub. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison and ended up serving four.

Appearing on This Morning on Monday (14 March), the TV personality described his time in prison as the largest obstacle he’d ever had to face.

“That was my biggest learning curve in life,” he said. “My biggest failure was going to prison, but boy oh boy, was that my biggest learning curve. Why was I there?”

Middleton said that the experience had taught him about “self-reflection” and learning to “hold yourself accountable”, rather than making excuses.

“Holding yourself accountable, being honest with yourself. Honestly, it will free you as an individual. But it’s really hard to do,” he said.

“When I went into prison, it was like this is no doubt my biggest failure, but the biggest lesson I’ve learnt from it is understanding who I am, what I need to do differently and attacking life differently and it’s changed me as an individual and it’s changed my life.”

Middleton hosted Who Dares Wins from 2015 to March 2021, when Channel 4 cut ties with him due to his controversial “views and values”.

The summer before, Middleton was forced to apologise for calling Black Lives Matter protesters “scum” and comparing them to the English Defence League.

He now works on the Australian version of the show.