APPRENTICE reject Majid Nagra fell in with GANGSTERS after four family members were killed in a motorway pile-up, we can reveal.

The 28-year-old Muslim told the News of the World how he saw one pal attacked with an AXE, another SHOT and a third KNIFED.

He admitted: "Had I not changed I'd be dead or in jail-most of my mates are."

Maj-booted off the BBC1 show last week for being quiet-now dedicates his spare time to warning schoolkids off gangs and radical Islam.

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His own life fell apart two days before his ninth birthday-when his brother, 26, sister, 23, her husband and a cousin died on the M1.

Their car was hit by a Porsche and spun into the path of a lorry. The only survivor was his sister's three- year-old daughter, who was raised with her brother by Maj's parents.

Maj, who had two remaining siblings, recalled: "It put a lot of pressure on my dad. He was going to retire but now he was working for three families.

"Also, my brother was like our dad. We never used to mess around-he'd put us straight if we did anything wrong. It was very difficult after the accident. I couldn't comprehend they had gone and I would lash out."

Maj said it was easy to fall in with the wrong crowd in the part of Coventry where they lived. "I used to walk to school through the flats and people would attack us, just to get your money, your trainers," he said.

"You would become theirs, their 'little bitch'. We looked up to these people as big and bad." By his late teens Maj was part of the crime scene. He said: "It was drugs and guns on a large scale-import/export.

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"Big, big things, VAT fraud, mobile phones, you name it."

But he explained: "If you're 19, not working and driving a nice car worth £20,000, with girls inside, and you have Rolex watches, not fakes-who doesn't want that?"

Maj became a debt collector for loan sharks. He said: "It wasn't pretty but it had to be done. I'd go with the main people and wait outside- make sure the police weren't coming."

Through luck, Maj never had a serious brush with the law or was badly hurt. But he watched as pals were targeted. He said: "This is how bad it was-we went to a gym associated with a person we didn't like. He stared at us. So my mate stared back.

"He didn't like that, went home and packed a car full of guys and tools (weapons). He came back, pulled his axe out and went for my friend's head. Not to put a scar on it-to take it off. My mate pulled back and it hit his shoulder. He had 15 or 16 stitches.

"One of my best friends got shot five times when I was 18. He was in hospital for a month. It was an automatic hand-gun, close range. Someone just came right up to him and went bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

"It's as easy to buy guns on the streets as it is to buy sweets from the shop. If you know the right people, you can get a gun in 10, 15 minutes.

"Cost depends on what you want. Back in the day it was a couple of pound here and there. Sometimes they'd buy it, sometimes they'd rent it, sometimes you're given it. Sometimes you're given a machine gun-go spray it."

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Another pal almost died after being stabbed. Maj said: "He had a fight with some youths, they came round, five of them, knifed him in his head-he's still got a massive scar on the back of his head-chopped his fingers, knife wounds in his chest, really really crazy stuff."

Eventually Maj realised he had to get out. He said: "If I carried on doing it, I could see myself being dead. There was no logic to my thinking."

He got a computer science degree from Coventry University, got married and worked in sales before going on the The Apprentice. He said: "I loved it, it was awesome. You gotta give Sir Alan Sugar credit. I had too much respect for him, that's where I went wrong."

Maj now runs a luxury car-hire firm and volunteers for a theatre workshop visiting schools to highlight the dangers of knife and gun crime. He said: "People don't understand, kids want to graduate in 'thugonomics'-that's what we call it.

"But what they don't understand is that they're ruining not only their lives but their family's lives, their local community- and there's no place for them to go. The only place they're going is jail, or a grave."

Maj reckons one of the biggest threats to today's kids is the lure of radical Islam.

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He said: "I know quite a few people that have become extremists. You see them for six months then they disappear. It really is weird. I don't know where they go.

"We've tried sitting down with people to make them understand that blowing yourself up on a Tube full of innocent people, you can't do that. That's totally mashed up."

His verdicts

BEN: "Too much testosterone."

DEBRA: "Ice cold, a dark horse."

YASMINA: "Control freak in good way."

LORRAINE: "Random but nice."

KIMBERLEY: "Full of hot air."

PAULA: "Happy-go-lucky."

PHILIP: "Should be the next James Bond."

JAMES: "Cracks under pressure."

MONA: "A closed book."

KATE: "Shrewd."

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