Neil and his three brothers, Steve, John, and Danny were put into separate children's homes when Neil was ten, because a court decided that their parents could no longer look after them. When he was sixteen he had to leave the care home he had lived in for six years, but in order to stay at school to complete his A-levels (which he needed for his ambition to go on to drama school) he advertised on his school noticeboard for a foster family to look after him. Some friends of his parents offered to foster him, and he lived with them for 18 months, allowing him to gain a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He moved down to London and shared a house with actor
Charles Lawson amongst others. To this day, he is still close with Charles.