Page 20 - News Magazine - AutumnWinter 2026_Web

Making an Paul Dayes, Director of Exit Foundation is himself

an ex-offender. Paul has made it his life’s passion to
Exit making the same mistakes that he once made. We
stop young people from taking the same path and

caught up with Paul to ask him about his life before
he found the Lord and how it has changed.

Paul, what was life like when you were growing up?
I lived in London up to the age of 10. My only memory is
my mother leaving when I was six years old, no longer able
to cope with Dad’s compulsive cheating. He couldn’t care
for me and my brother. Mum obtained custody of us, and
we lived with her in Wolverhampton. She was a midwife
and I used my unsupervised time very negatively, hanging
with the wrong crowd, getting into all sorts of trouble,
skipping school and committing crime. At 14 I was caught
in a stolen car and placed into care. I ran off at the first
day and became homeless, living on the streets, injecting
heroin and committing crime to support my drugs use.
Before faith, what were you searching for in life? How
did you become involved in crime?
I was in survival mode. Success was having money;
survival was being able to support my drugs habit.
I wanted nice things and to be able to enjoy life.
My way of obtaining money was by committing
crime. I knew my behaviour was wrong and there
were consequences. I went through the entire
Young Offenders path of ‘Detention Centre’, ‘Borstal’,
twice. Aged 19 I was placed into adult prison.
What was prison like before you encountered
Christ?
I knew my way around prison and the system.
It was never a deterrent otherwise I would not
have continued to get into trouble. In all honesty
my being in prison each time saved my life and
I knew it.

What was your first encounter with Christ like?
What part did a GOOD NEWS for Everyone!
Testament play in your conversion?
My first encounter with Christ was in a prison
cell in 2007. My first Bible was a GOOD NEWS
for Everyone! Testament I found on a radiator
outside my cell door in Winson Green Prison.
It didn’t appear to belong to anyone, so I put
it in my cell and went off to work in the prison
workshop.

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