Jesus in a shop doorway

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the Apartment Bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This programme contains content on distressing issues, including references to suicide and drugs, as well as sexual and violent material, which may be difficult for some listeners.

0:55I can only describe it like putting my head in a bucket of water and you can hear the noise around you, but it's just muffled. So it's like you're not really there. And I was just a little boy, really so naive and scared.

1:26I'm Sharoma Silva and this is the documentary on the BBC World Service. For this episode of Heart and Soul, which looks at personal stories of faith, I've come to meet Mick Fleming to learn how, against the backdrop of childhood trauma, He went from being a gangster to a healer.

1:49So I was brought up in a kind of really good working class home. Good parents, sisters, no brothers, so I was the only boy. So I was mummy's little soldier. They were kind of timid, really quiet. You remember them black square glasses and they had a patch over me eye because they had a lazy eye. Then one day, aged 11, Mick took a shortcut walking to school. I felt like a woolly jumper being stuffed in my face. What it was, it was the arm of a man coming across my face. Sometimes even now I wake up and I can't stand the thought of wool against my teeth. I was assaulted sexually and physically. And I didn't know what was happening because I didn't understand sex.

2:36and I can graphically remember there was like a glass bottle at the side. In my head and in my mind, many times over the years, I've picked the bottle up and hit him with it, but I was too scared, I didn't. Also, my glasses had broken on one side and they got knocked off on the floor. And when I picked them up and put them on, I couldn't see in colour. I could only see them black and white. But I kind of sensed, found out it's kind of trauma. The attacker threatened to kill Mick's parents if he uttered even a word. Do you think you were ashamed? I'd heard people talk about being gay and stuff like that.

3:14And I thought this man had made me gay. So I was ashamed, yeah, because people used to use that word as slang. At home in bed that night, Mick relived the attack. There was a streetlight outside our house that used to shine into my bedroom. and there was a tree across the road and when it blew, you could see the shadow on the wall, even through the curtains because they were thin curtains. It felt like I could see that man's face on the wall and I started to cry, but I knew that if my mum and dad heard me crying, that they'd ask me and I'd have to tell them the truth. So I didn't want them to hear me crying, so I bit the covers.

4:00and do you know I never knew then I'd never cry again for 30 years it was. Thinking about it all night Mick eventually decided to tell his dad but in the morning his dad had his own devastating news to share. He was walking in through the front door and he come in and he said Michael come down sit down your sister's dead and it was just like that He didn't know how to do it. And that was so traumatic.

4:32His older sister Anne, whom Mick was very close to, had suffered a heart attack and died in her father's arms at the hospital doors. So the trauma was so connected that I'd got hurt, so my sister had to die. Even though that wasn't true, it was coincidence. So I had a lot of hate towards that man. Overwhelmed by it all, Mick took a small handful of painkillers his mother used for a bad back. And I led on the bed, and slowly but surely, I felt peace like I've never felt before in my life. And there was no more pain, nothing mattered, and it was like I just floated away. I think I became an addict from that feeling that I got.

5:20I chased that feeling. His sister's death ravaged this Catholic family. And over the years, Mick turned from being a quiet little boy to a bulky six foot two young man who caused terror. When you are vulnerable, you know, people pick up on it and they think they can take advantage. So you change that vulnerability to crazy. I would go further than the next person. And that progressed. Do you know what I mean? If you're going to punch me, I'm going to stab you. if you're going to stab me, I'm going to shoot you. When I realised I had this kind of power that I hadn't known about, then I started to use that power.

5:58And his use of drugs also ramped up. It was unbelievable. The feeling of confidence was like nothing mattered. It went through the roof. I thought I'd found God.

6:15Today, Mick genuinely has found God. and for the service this Sunday he's joined by his sisters Claire and Sarah who told me about Mick's past. We made a pact didn't we as a family if he knocked on the door he wasn't to come in because he'd done that with all of us hadn't he and stolen money and cheated and lied and we feared that he would die we'd get a phone call and he'd be dead that's what we feared. If I was to think about any story of how he was in active addiction it would be when myself and Claire messaged him saying dad's going in for an operation and we thought genuinely didn't with it he was going to die yeah they had cancer um but do you want to mention what what he said to him we'd been to see him didn't we and we'd hope that Mick were going as well anyway he did turn up on his own and we found out later that Mick had actually said to my dad, I'm glad you've got cancer and I hope you die.

7:15And he actually spat in his face. But it was awful, wasn't it, for us when we found out, how can somebody do that to their own father? In fact, Mick's life had descended into criminality with multiple arrests for serious crimes, including murder, firearms offences and armed robbery. But he always avoided prison. One of his jobs was to collect debts on behalf of drug dealers by whatever means necessary. On one such occasion, the man he had to confront was walking out of a gym with two little girls either side of him. I jumped out of the car with the gun in the carrier bag and I walked and there was light shining off the hands where he was holding them and the light hit me in the face.

8:04It was just brightness. It stopped Mick from using his gun. And as the gun passed, I was like panicking because I couldn't see. And then my sight started to come back. And I started sweating, I started shaking, I started feeling sick. And then I was sick and I ripped something in my stomach, I felt it. And blood just started coming up and it was all over me. It looked like I'd been stabbed up. Mick went back into the car. Every single time all of my life, so when I drank, you get a moment of relief and it's like, ah, that feeling. And I smashed the vodka. I didn't get that feeling. And I'm like, what?

8:43He tried again, but nothing. For the first time ever, the drink and the drugs didn't work. So panicking, Mick went for the nuclear option. I had the gun in the carrier bag and I put it under my chain and I pulled the trigger and it didn't go off. and I dropped it on the floor. I just felt all this water flying out of my eyes and running down my face. And I heard this noise. I thought I started looking round like that. I heard a noise. It sounded like a puppy. And it took me like 10 minutes to realise I was crying and sobbing. And it was me. It was coming out of me. And I just felt like that little boy that were biting the covers when he was 11.

9:30So I thought, I'm never going to stop crying. When I got rid of the car and I put the gun away, I fired it into the ground three times and it fired. And I had this thing of, like, do I think some sort of power, some sort of God had stopped me from hurting myself? Despite having children by now, Mick dipped in and out of homelessness, continuing his drug and alcohol dependence. Then one cold day, he went into a church, seeking answers to the question that had been planted. He was given tea and warmth, but as he got late, he couldn't help feeling that the people there wanted him gone. Mick could feel a seizure coming on, but as he was leaving, a homeless man, seated at a shop doorway, beckoned him over.

10:21And he put his quilt around me, and he took his own hat off his head and put it on me. and then for half an hour to an hour, maybe three quarters of an hour, he poured cider into my mouth, just enough, till the shake stopped, then he rolled me a cigarette and he'd give me the cigarette. And I felt at the time, you know, I found Jesus in a shop doorway because I couldn't find him in the church. I would make it a white Christmas. It didn't need to be snowy. I'll make it snow. Today, Mika's helped set up what's called the Genesis programme, helping people be free from addiction. In this group, they're talking about navigating the winter festivities.

11:02So when I get up on Boxing Day morning now, I just think, thank God I got through that. I don't want to drink because it doesn't excite me anymore. Pastor Clara, whose own past is now well behind her, ran today's workshop and told me why people connect so strongly with Mick. He just gets it. he gets the truth of addiction, he gets the poverty of it. You can sit with Mick and you can go to them dark places and be reminded of how bad it is if you use again. Listening to Pastor Clara, I could see why Mick is so good at understanding people at the very pit of their despair. After that time when he put a gun to his head, Mick was treated in a psychiatric unit.

11:53It helped, but even after he'd recovered, he continued to struggle with addiction. So I'm praying to God and led on my bed and I had my eyes wide open and I seen a white light spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning. And then there's an angel at the bottom of the bed. The first thing I thought, I thought, you are really poorly. Anyway, the angel's there, it's massive and it's white. and I just went, all right, pal. And the angel just said, yeah, I'm all right, sound. And I'm thinking, Mick, what's going on here? Checking to make sure that he hadn't overdosed on medication, Mick did, as he said the angel instructed, namely to go and stand underneath the town hall clock at 7pm.

12:37I had a little imagine thing in my head, like imagine if police come and I told them the truth, what are you doing here? Oh, I'm waiting for an angel. They'd throw a key away, weren't they? And I remember, like, smiling to myself, but, like, still afraid because it's not normal, is it? It's not right. So I'm assuming that I'm losing the plot. But I felt all right. It was so bizarre. But come 7 o 'clock, a man appeared who led Mick to a recovery meeting, marking his recovery journey. That night, Mick had another visit. And the angel appeared again. He said, God's got another job for you. Will you do it?

13:16I said, I'll do anything. and he said, God wants you to forgive the man that raped you. And my jaw dropped and I just said, I don't want to do that and I don't want anything to do with that, God. I said, I'll never forgive him. If I see him, I'll kill him. And the angel said, you will. And when you do, he'll send a message of forgiveness and repentance around the world. And I just said, not from me. and the angel went and I kind of started to question God and my own sanity again.

13:58What happened to the angel's predictions is what I wanted to find out next.

14:08If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

14:45You're listening to the documentary on the BBC World Service. I'm Sharoma Silva and I'm with Mick Fleming, a man who turned from being a dealer to a healer. I should say that this programme contains content on distressing issues, including references to suicide and drugs, as well as sexual and violent material. Increasingly isolated from his family and the criminal network, Mick made new friendships amongst addicts and homeless people. But he was plagued by his childhood trauma. So when I was raped, I had the man's face fixed into my mind. I used to be scared to look at it in my mind, his face.

15:31So I'd constantly push it away or do something so that I didn't feel. so that would be drugs or alcohol. I'll just distract myself from it. Then one day he encountered an alcoholic sitting in a McDonald's. It was a face that had ripped away his innocence and which he carried with him all his adult life. And I see he had his head down and he put his head up and I saw him and I felt this stuff inside me. The only way I can describe it is, you know, when your tummy makes sounds, you were rumbling inside me. How could you be sure it was him? I knew it was him. When somebody does that to you, it never, ever, ever leaves you.

16:16I knew his face, I knew every line on it was older. I knew it instantly. And then I kind of was shaking inside. He had no idea it was me. I'd gone from this little tiny boy with glasses and a patch over his eye to a big strong man. I thought about just walking over and just beating his face in first. and I just thought, no, you've got to be smart here. Mick got the man something to eat and talked about his own recovery, promising to help him if he met Mick the next day. I really felt he was going to die on my terms, not his, and it wasn't that day. That night, Mick's trauma peaked. We were eating away at me.

16:58We were thinking of all the bad things I'd done and my life and how bad it had been and the trauma and, like, blaming him. So Mick prepared knives to hide up his sleeve and down his leg. It was almost like ritualistic. What did you fantasise about doing? I was sticking it in his neck. And then I was going to tell him who I was, as he was dying. I was almost excited that what I was going to do. And I kind of felt in a strange way, if he turns up, then he's dead. If he doesn't turn up, I'm not going to go looking for him. Almost thought I could pin it on God, I suppose, or you sent him. The next day, true to form, the man was back.

18:05just like I had when I'd seen that white with the two little girls. And I said to the guy, I won't be a minute, I'm just going to go in the toilet. And I went in the toilet, put the knife into my pocket and washed my face and I heard it again. Mate, why are you living in this sin? And I looked in the mirror and I heard it again. I never thought about this till talking to you now. The nearest I can describe it, when I took the painkillers when I was a little boy and my sister had died. I got the feeling like that, the warmth running through me. And when I went back out, he was doing all the talking and I was just listening and I was just thinking and I didn't want to stab him.

18:51It was odd. It was like it had been taken away from me. I understood that what he'd done to me I'd been living in for all these years. I felt like, literally like things were dropping off me Afterwards when I sat down talking to him I don't think I hated him, I think I just didn't like him There was a difference I didn't like his voice I didn't like the way we're breathing But I didn't hate him

19:28Certain that the man could never hurt another child Mick kept in distant contact and even helped the man's family. He died two years later, sober and having found some level of faith. I never ever told him, but he was the man that raped me. And now Mick understood forgiveness. I thought forgiveness was, you put your arms around someone and say, it doesn't matter what you did to me. And I didn't have that. I can't forgive that man, I want to kill him. But this was different. and this was God doing the forgiving, not me. And I realised my sin had been bad enough and I felt forgiven. And it changed me.

20:10After that day, I wasn't trapped in my circumstance anymore and the angel had said that that would happen.

20:22With his faith rekindled, Mick knew he had to right past wrongs. One incident involved facing a drugs boss to whom Mick owed£50 ,000. At the meeting, the criminal suggested Mick raise the cash by selling his valuables, none of which he had. Then he suggested he sell some drugs. No, I'm not. I can't do that anymore because I've fined the Lord. Imagine saying that, you know, but that's what it was. Mick knew that the penalty of not repaying debts in that fraternity was severe. Men rape men for drug debts. And I had a feeling, because this was a thing at the time, they cut your toes off with bolt croppers.

21:02I was sure that I was going to lose a couple of toes or something. So I'd seen that done and I know what that's like. Instead, the boss sent his henchman out of the room and asked Mick about his newfound faith. What came next was even more bizarre. He said, you've paid me, haven't you? I went, what? He said, you've paid me, haven't you? and I went, yeah. If anybody finds out that you haven't paid me, he said, you're dead, do you understand? I said, yeah, yeah. On top of letting him off, the drug boss actually gave Mick£1 ,000. I think he saw something in me, even at that early stage, that he wished he had.

21:44Today, Mick has swapped his house for a camper van, which he also uses to visit homeless people and addicts. Teacups are jangling in the back? They are, yeah, you can hear them. Then we came across someone who Mick knew from his younger days and whose early years' problems has led to destitution. This is an old friend of mine. Hello. Flipping, eh? Stephen owns just one carrier bag of clothes and a quilt, which got drenched in the bad weather when his tent was stolen. Then I noticed something about Stephen. You're carrying a Bible there. What's that about? I've believed for years, me. Yeah. Yeah.

22:21It just gives me hope and it gives me comfort when I read it. But you've always had faith. Yeah. I try passing it on to others as well. And I do get blessed. I've seen a lot of people die, haven't we? Yeah. Come and go. Back in Mick's story, I wondered how he carried the skeletons of his past. It plagued Mick too, as he looked into deepening his faith and studying theology at university. So he sought answers from a college chaplain.

23:20especially for you Mick and you know my heart strangely warmed I've never been the same since and I'm forgiven and I'm free Mick got his degree and became ordained now he's a bishop and he's in his office getting ready for a Sunday service at Church on the Street, a non-denominational church in the north-west of England, where many in the congregation have struggled with addiction. Hey, hello. Come on in. Good to see you. How are you? I'm trying. Very trying, some people say. But even at 10am, Mick is having to sort out problems. Can you just make it known that there's no smoke and drugs in the toilet again this morning?

24:15Honestly? Or gear? Or crack? You spell gear? Yeah, I don't know. All right. Just lock them? Yeah. So just like, just see, if it happens again next week, there won't be any toilets, so go before you come or leave. Mick is joined by his sisters, who have also come to faith. They, along with their late father before he died, have reconciled with the new Mick. Will you do the reading for me? Of course. That's great. Yeah. Yeah, just that everyone's talking about it. Why? That's really sad, isn't it, that? Lee, who they're talking about, was getting to grips with addiction when he was suddenly found dead.

24:54It's part of Mick's new normal, battling the challenges of being a pastor in one of Britain's poorest communities. But getting to know Mick, I also wondered how he reconciles the sins of his own past. You've had some dark moments, very dark moments, and serious criminality. Is this just a way of whitewashing all this away by starting a new life under the guise of faith? It depends whether you think faith is real or not. So for me, faith is real. So I would say the best way to find out the answer is look to the people around me. It's not just me that's getting changed. That's being passed on. and other people are changing because of the message.

25:43Everybody, I made a list of everybody that I had hurt, and I went out and I made amends to every single one of them. Each time I did it, I got more and more courage, but they weren't all well received. Or is it even a way of just making yourself feel good about yourself now? No, because I don't feel good about myself. In the history of the world, nobody ever gets away with anything. You carry everything. You just pretend you don't sometimes. I'm not proud in any shape or form of what I've done. I'm just telling you I'm not that person anymore. What will the people do with that? I don't really care.

26:22They don't have to forgive me because God has. And I want to be right with the people that I have hurt the best that I can anyway. Have a look at my family being restored. Have a look at my children coming back into my world and my life. have a look at my wife, her life being transformed have a look at all the people that work in this church have a look at the hundreds that come through the doors and watch their lives being touched and changed and then you can have an opinion. It's a message that's central to Mick's story and one that has reached countless others well beyond his own community.

27:00Many years later I wrote a book the book became a bestseller it's been translated into loads of different languages the message of forgiveness, just like the angel said, went right round the world. This edition of Heart and Soul featuring Mick Fleming was presented and produced by me, Sharoma Silva. The executive producer was Rajiv Gupta. If you are suffering from distress or despair and need support, you could speak to a health professional or to an organisation that offers support. Details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide. That's www.befrienders.org.