Heather Bellamy heard John Lawson's story.

I'm by no means holy-joe or perfect in any way. I've got my faults just like everybody else, but I definitely have a new heart and spirit today. I have such a desire in me to share my faith with others and to come alongside Christians and encourage them to share their faith.

Pollsmoor prison Cape Town

I can remember getting out of prison and being so disappointed that the majority of Christians I met were not sharing the gospel. I didn't understand it. I'd just found this amazing thing and I just wanted to share the gospel message with others. I've been saved from so much and I could not keep quiet about my Lord and my Saviour Jesus Christ.

Heather: What about your children? How have you looked to remedy any effect on their lives from when you were a criminal?

John: I was really fortunate that my children were very unaware. They just had a loving dad. It wasn't like while I was at home I was a violent man, or acting in any horrible way. They had the effect of having to come and visit me in prison, which affected their lives and also the marriage breakup, but it is quite amazing because God really changed me. I have a great relationship with my ex-wife today, we are really good friends. I get to see my kids all the time and I even get invited when I go to Scotland, when my ex-wife and her man go away, to stay in their house. None of that would have been possible with the way that I was before. That is only possible through Christ.

I have a great relationship with my kids today. They know about my past. They know about the man that I am today and to them I am just dad. I am very blessed to be loved by my kids.

Then a few years later, Christ brought into my life a wonderful Christian lady and for the first time in my life, I got married under God, in God and with God at the core of our relationship. I tell you Heather, what a difference to married life, to be married in unity with someone who is also a believer. To have a woman of God standing beside me and supporting me, knowing about my past and accepting me into her life and her children's life. She has been through a messy divorce as well. The Lord has really began to restore my life. Today, I have a home and family and a great relationship with my wife and kids and a great relationship with my ex and none of it would have been possible without Christ - none of it.

Heather: You have your biography out now, how honest is the book?

John: It's brutally honest. The title of the book is If A Wicked Man, which I have taken from those passages in Ezekiel.

I was asked several years ago to write the story of my life. People seemed to be interested in it. I really had no interest in writing a book though. An author came along and offered me money at a time when I didn't have anything at all and I was tempted for a moment, until he opened his mouth and said he wanted to write all about the violence and the kidnapping and he wanted to play the God part down. I just knew at that point, no.

Since then I have been on missions all over the world. I have travelled to over 20 countries and spoken to some of the toughest prisoners on the planet. Then several years after the first approach, I bumped into another author who wanted to write my story. I really had to pray about it because I didn't want to write just another book that would only sit on Christian shelves.

I was quite intrigued by the fact that if you go into any of the mainstream secular book stores, you won't really find any Christian testimony book there at all. You could go and order one, like The Cross And The Switchblade, and go pick it up in one of the book shops, but they don't generally stock Christian testimony books. You have to go to a Christian bookshop for that and that's not the audience that I wanted to reach.

If I'm wanting to do my story and if I want it to reach people, I want it to reach people that would never pick up a Christian book and I want to find a way to give them the gospel. What changed my mind about writing my story, was that we could reach people by writing a very true and accurate account of my life story and in there keep the integrity of the gospel intact. So we marketed the book as a true crime biography, which it is. Everything in the book is very frank and true, although we've had to put a disclaimer in there, because we've had to change some of the names and some of the places to protect the innocents. It would read quite shocking for some and quite brutal. I've been very careful to keep any bad language out of the book and be as descriptive as we can without it being gratuitous, but it's still a very frank account. The best part is coming to the part in prison, which you've just heard, where I gave my life to Christ.

It's been amazing because we've been accepted into the secular bookstores, so I've been doing books signings all around the country, in places like Waterstones and WHSmith. That has only happened because it's a true crime biography and not a Christian testimony book, although that's the message and that's the last thing that will be left with the reader.

Ooty in the Nilgiri Mountains India

Heather: What impact has it had on you, to relive the events of your life while writing the book?