 Smith moved from Gloucester to Tewkesbury and then Ross @-@ on @-@ Wye , where he lived with a female partner . They had a son in 1990 and two more children in 1992 , but Smith left the family and moved to Cardiff when the relationship became difficult . He then spent a year in Ireland lodging with a travelling family who took pity on him while he was hitchhiking in Athlone , County Westmeath , Ireland . He told them he was an English gypsy visiting Ireland , and they allowed him to live rent @-@ free in a spare caravan , while he contributed a portion of his unemployment benefit towards food . They asked him to leave because they were uncomfortable about sexual remarks he had made to young female members of the family . He moved to Birmingham towards the end of 1999 and stayed briefly at the Trinity Centre , a hostel for the homeless in Digbeth , before moving to a property managed by a housing association in Braithwaite Road in the Sparkbrook district of Birmingham . He became well @-@ known locally and was a regular patron of the Shamrock Cafe on Stratford Road and of the Rainbow pub in Digbeth , where he was employed on a casual basis as an odd @-@ jobber and served as an unofficial taxi driver for drinkers . 
