DANIEL GALVIN Jr: A bad hair day

Hairdressers are generally cheerful creatures. A recent survey found them to be the second-most satisfied workers in Britain, citing creative freedom and variety as significant factors. Most of all, they say, they like people. A bit of a surprise, then, to learn that Daniel Galvin Jr, stylist to the stars, has been taking pot shots at farmers with an air rifle.

Galvin, 38, who counts Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as clients, appeared outside court this week, convicted of shooting at neighbours over a boundary dispute. He looked surly and scrappily coiffed. How are the stylish fallen?

The Galvins are something of a hairdressing dynasty. Daniel Galvin Sr, often referred to as the “King of Colour”, was known for fashioning the blonde streaks of Diana, Princess of Wales. His father was a barber and his grandfather too, at the London salon Truefitt & Hill, back in the days when maharajas would arrive by horse and carriage. Galvin Jr’s two siblings, James and Louise, are also in the business.

He had a privileged childhood, growing up in a mansion in Hertfordshire and attending Millfield School in Somerset. As a child he wanted to be a footballer, then a journalist, but began working in his father’s salon as a teenager. “My father just expected me to,” he said. He found that he was good at it. The “beautiful women” didn’t hurt either.

Despite his success, a rift grew between Galvin and his father. “He never told me he was proud of me. It seemed the more successful I became the more he resented it.” By his late twenties he was partying wildly and doing “a silly amount of drugs. I would wind up pretty much in a coma”. After ten years as a self-confessed coke addict and several failed attempts at rehab, Galvin checked into a clinic in Oklahoma and got clean.

Now he lives in Worcestershire with his wife, Susannah, and their two children, Raffael, 16, and Rhett, 6. His professional success continues. He has spoken of a need for perfection and in 2004 he launched a haircare line with the Prince of Wales. “It’s about making people even more beautiful than nature intended,” he said.

He runs every morning – “to clear my head” – and moonlights as an amateur boxer. “I deal with demanding women all day, so boxing is a release.” In 2005 he was cleared of assaulting a (different) neighbour over a shot seagull, but admitted to punching him three times in the head in self-defence.

Of hairdressing, he says: “It’s non-stop. If you’re under the weather, you can’t let that rub off on clients. You have to present a happy, smiley face. I get very tired sometimes. At the end of the day, when I sit down on the train home, I don’t want to get up again.” One wonders if he’ll be smiling while serving his 150 hours of community service.