Journey from Drug Dealing to Deliverance
By Marie
Claud Jackson first held a gun in his hands at the age of 6. Now, over 30 years later, he is working as a curate, studying for the ministry and preparing to return to the same London neighbourhoods but this time with a Bible in his hands. His story is one of poverty, abuse, drug dealing, and violence and of a life turned around by a loving God who refused to give up on him.
Born in Clapham, the youngest of 6 siblings, Claud grew up in the shadow of domestic violence, with a London-born mum and an abusive and controlling Jamaican dad. He spent his childhood treading on eggshells, keen not to provoke the anger which his dad would regularly take out on Claud, his mum, his siblings, and their dog. ‘Terrible pain and darkness filled our lives on a daily basis’, Claud writes, with fear and anxiety being constant companions for him as a young boy.
When Claud was 6 years old, he held a gun for the first time – a 9mm handgun belonging to his older brother. ‘The gun possessed power, and as young as I was, I could feel it. I could feel its darkness and I could feel its strength’, he recalls.
Claud hero-worshipped his brother, who left home in his early teens to become a violent drug dealer and was in prison by the time Claud was 7. When his brother came out of prison, he and Claud’s mum bought a shop, which his brother used as a base for shady dealings. Claud was struggling at school and, having been bullied, he learned to fight back, believing that ‘with fear comes respect.’
Meanwhile, the family were living in poverty and had to move house regularly – at one point, Claud slept on the floor under the stairs. At school, he became a spiteful, bully and an outcast.
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.
Around this time, he started attending a Thursday night youth club with a friend and heard Brian Greenaway speak and read his book, Hell’s Angel, which awoke a brief interest in Christianity and even led Claud to ask the youth leader for a Bible; however, when he wasn’t given one straightaway, he became resentful and stopped going to the club.
When Claud was involved in a car crash outside a church, he met a West Indian nurse in a hospital who talked to him about her faith and the need for him to know Jesus – while this made an impression on him at the time, he quickly sank back into depression, drugs, panic attacks, self-pity and poverty after his release from the hospital.
Claud was approached about becoming a mentor for high-risk young offenders for the local council, it initially seemed like a handy ‘respectable’ cover for his drug-dealing activities. However, he found that he enjoyed it and, one day, he heard a colleague (Pete) talk about his faith and knew that he had to know more.
Pete recommended the Alpha course – as it happened, there was one starting locally the following evening, and Claud was bowled over by the warm welcome he received. He looked forward to the sessions and, one evening, ‘my heart dared Jesus to come into my life and make a change’, giving him a sense of deep joy and peace.
Shortly after, he confessed his life of crime to the vicar, who encouraged him to get a ‘proper, full-time, permanent job’. Leaving his old life behind, he started to read the Bible and pray daily, and surround himself with people who would point him in the right direction.
By the time the Alpha course had finished, the desire to sell drugs had completely left him.
Claud has now passed his Bishops’ Advisory Panel (BAP) and is in the process of training for two years to become a Church of England priest. Once ordained, he would love to plant a church and work with young people to decrease gang culture and knife crime.