His own words 1

The British criminal story:

"Abused and fatherless," that's how Allen describes his childhood. "Bullying and intimidating my way through life," that's the life he chose for himself once he left home as a teenager. 

He was signed as a professional rugby player, but the "criminal underworld" attracted him to fighting and heroin. During one of his prison sentences he cleaned up his life, but back on the streets he returned to drinking, drugs, violence. He thought about suicide.

At rock-bottom he turned to God. He says he took all the raging anger he felt and placed it at the feet of Jesus on the cross. Peace finally came.

The broken fragments of his life began to come together, including his family. Allen started speaking to prisoners and became a sports chaplain. Even so, it hasn't been easy, he says, having a "functioning conscience." But God is refining him, and that's the life he chooses  now.

This is Allen Langham, author of Taming of a Villain