And for the first time in many years, I stared at this package and thought: is this my contribution to society? I didn’t realise it, but the Holy Spirit was at work and I just thought: I’ve got to stop what I’m doing.

He left the family home round about the age of 12 or 14 to live with my nan in Brixton and he would come home once or twice a month.

Guns to God is an inspiring and thought-provoking Christian autobiography for anyone wanting a stronger understanding of and insight into the struggle against drugs and drug dealing in urban communities in the UK, and the role that the Christian faith has to play. An expert panel discusses the introduction of Prayers of Love and Faith and blessings for same-sex couples. Claud shares his powerful testimony, from dealing drugs to finding faith, and becoming an advocate for change.

The only conclusion I’ve come to is the poverty of our situation, and having six children, was a huge pressure on both of my parents. I remember how we gathered in one place to teach teamwork – I arrived in a convertible, and he on a bicycle.When I was older, it meant having a reputation that won me friends, and friends who kept my reputation on top.

THINGS started really well, and before long I was offered a position as a paid sessional worker and granted my own pass and council ID card, which I wore around my neck with pride. Amazing read, Claud has a way of writing that is so gripping that in every moment of the story your imagination is engaged to experience the emotions, smells and sights of the moments in his life that he explains. When Claud was 12, he joined a new school where he was one of only 3 black or mixed-race children in a school of 700 pupils and experienced racism for the first time. He had an abusive upbringing and hurt people hurt people, but having been through what I’ve been through, I find it hard to justify his abusive violence. Dad would get the Bible out every few months and demand we all sit round the dinner table while he read Psalm 23.

Who would possibly believe that one of the mentors working for the council was a drug-dealer in his spare time? Whether you read it in a day or take your time over it, there is a challenge in these pages to see the work of God in one man's life, and the hand of God over all our lives.

I loved what I was doing through mentoring, but I hated that it still wasn’t enough to make me give up the drugs game I had spent most of my life playing. I thought about when the teachers would segregate me in school, and I was made to sit on my own for hours in halls and corridors. Full of anger, Claud felt ‘I wanted to somehow pay life back for all the hurt it had handed out to me, but against everything inside of me that told me not to trust others, I still wanted desperately to belong.

Now 21 years old, Claud and his mum were forced to live off bread, milk, tea, and potatoes – until his drug dealing business started bringing in more money again. While there, I created behavioural programmes and implemented them within the sector that I was working in.