Joined in 2023 
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There is hot food available seven days a week and we have a huge food bank. We have showers and washing machines and dryers to help the homeless and others. I was in a homeless hostel, and it was the first time in my life that I was not relying on drugs or alcohol. I had these feelings that I didn’t know what to do with. I didn’t know who I was. So l prayed, and I saw a light at the bottom of the bed.
The police got into their vans and off they went," he says. "Church on the Street was alive. We'd found a way to do church when all the others had closed." I didn’t break any laws – I did my best anyway. The police tried to arrest me once in a car park – I wasn’t brilliant at not hugging people, because the guys I was hugging were dying. On one street where I was delivering food parcels, three men under 40 killed themselves in three weeks. It's impossible to visit Church on the Street and not be deeply moved by the work the organisation does for those in need. It is an extraordinary place ... 'HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES, from the Foreword I get more death threats as a Christian than I did when I was doing the other [criminal] stuff! The things that have been levelled at me did upset me: that I’m just a social worker and I’m not giving the gospel. I just think they’ve misunderstood the gospel.Sometimes it’s more like running a hospital, but I think that’s what the Church should be. You’ve got Christ in the centre, and you are being “doers of the word” (James 1:22, NKJV). The secular come in, and they end up becoming Christians – not by us preaching at them, but by the work we do. They couldn’t hold it together. And I was holding them in my arms and praying for them while they were crying, wanting life – while churches were shut. I might have been wrong in what I did, but I was trying to keep people alive long enough to hear the gospel, because I knew what it had done for me. It would be amazing if he finished his boxing career and came and did this – you never know, he could choose to.” He said: “I’ve met the future king, I’m going to be made bishop this year alone. It’s been a life of extremes and people wouldn’t believe it.
The truth is that I arranged to meet him again because I wanted to kill him. I had a knife with me, but I had a realisation in that moment. I thought: I’ve lived with what he did to me for 30 years. I’ve destroyed myself and everybody around me. My sin has been bad enough. Why would I live in somebody else’s? It's impossible to visit Church on the Street and not be deeply moved by the work the organisation does for those in need. It is an extraordinary place ... ' HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES , from the Foreword I met a guy in church who had just come out of prison. He said his prison chaplain had told him Jesus died for his sins, but he didn’t understand what that meant. He’d been to loads of churches, but no one had been able to explain it to him. Then I put the gun under my chin and pulled the trigger. Thank God it didn’t go off! I believe that God saved me in that moment, because I knew the firearm couldn’t jam. I don’t know if I thought it was Jesus, but I felt there was something bigger than me out there, and that gave me hope.I was sexually assaulted on my way to school by a stranger. I had to hide my crying because this man said he’d kill my mum and dad if I told them. I got up in the morning and decided I was going to tell my dad. But when I went downstairs, he said: “Sit down, your sister’s dead.” When I read this autobiography, therefore, I knew about his work and that he had turned his life around — “from drug dealer to life bringer”. So I looked for some insight into how someone is drawn to criminality in the first place and how they get themselves out of it: critical issues, if we are to reduce crime. It’s worse now. The need is rising, but the resource is less. We’ve got more working poor and pensioner poverty. Children are undernourished and we’re seeing more disabled people sleeping rough. I could go on and on.
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