Working with Brierley Hill’s ‘worst’ – BHP stories

Stacey Simpson

Over an extended period of time we had the privilege of working with who the police called Brierley Hills worst. This man had accumulated approximately 150 criminal charges of all types, including police assault. He had been an addict for 20 plus years, had alcohol dependency problems, had been a rough sleeper on and off, extremely violent the list goes on. To say that his life was a mess would paint a nicer picture than the reality he lived in.

At the start of working with him we found that he had a very high level of hopelessness due to the volume and nature of some of his charges. We talked through how his life started to go downhill.
We discovered that he had a dream, much to his surprise. So, we started the journey to build his life.

A lot of the things he was doing with us no one had seen him do for many years, if ever. He was trying to stay clean (off drugs) he was getting fit, doing boxing with me.
His dream was to make extreme sports available to disabled people. We managed to get him some training which should have cost a lot of money, for free. This was given to him by the Pioneer Centre, Cleobury. They saw what we saw in him and were willing to take a chance.
It is important to say that he was no angel even through this process. But his attitude and behaviour had changed dramatically. This was noted by police and probation who encouraged us to keep doing what we were doing as it was having very positive results.

I saw him as normal on the Tuesday, he told me that he had recommitted his life to the Lord and had reassured Dave Baker (Pastor of Albion St Church) that God had got him. A couple of weeks later I was talking to him outside his friends flat. One and a half hours later he was dead.

I was devastated and so upset, but was reminded by Ruth (my wife) that he had gone home. That God knows the time and the place better than we ever will.
He had the chance to get his “internal affairs” in line. I don’t know what his life would have looked like if he had still been here but I do know that his life looks amazing now.

The Brierley Hill Project is based on the Chapel Street estate in Brierley Hill and works to support members of the local community. To get regular updates from the project contact john@brierleyhillproject.org.uk and to find out more about the project visit the website at www.brierleyhillproject.org.uk