Howard’s first experience of being in prison was just before he returned to live in the UK having lived and worked in America for most of the 1980s.

This would have been around the late 1980s when he met up with a Christian pastor in Florida who regularly went into prisons to minister to the inmates.
Howard asked this pastor if he could go with him on his next visit to see what and how to share the Gospel with the prisoners.
This experience had a profound impact on Howard and when he returned to live in the UK, he saw an opportunity to make enquiries to become part of the organisation called Prison Fellowship and was soon ministering to the young boys at Feltham Young Offenders Prison.

There had been some TV coverage on the News about several young offenders committing suicide and Howard heard the voice of the Lord say for him to get into that particular prison and Howard apparently said in reply to this voice “Well I can’t exactly call the Prison Governor up and say “God has told me that I should come into your prison and help to counsel the young lads and try and give them some hope and reason to live and that there is a better future to look forward to etc”.
Howard had experienced suicidal episodes in his own life, therefore he felt he could be of some help and hopefully would give good reasons for not taking their own life.

What happened next is that the following Sunday morning at his church in Cornerstone Esher, there was a visiting speaker who was sharing testimonies of how some prisoners had changed their ways and made a complete success of their lives through the Prison Fellowship organisation, which the speaker belonged to. Immediately after the service had finished, Howard spoke to the visiting Pastor and said, “by any chance do you visit Feltham Young Offenders Prison?” To Howard’s delight, he said YES!
Howard asked if he could join them, knowing that the Lord had only spoken to Howard about going into that particular prison… Howard was asked to first attend a prayer meeting that Prison Fellowship held every week in the Twickenham area and was also told that he wouldn’t be able to go into the Prison until certain checks had been carried out also they wanted to see where Howard was coming from and how sincere he was.

It was only a matter of a week or so before Howard made his first visit to Feltham Young Offenders Prison, and he loved talking to the inmates. Howard and his wife Lesley had recently begun fostering children for the Borough of Twickenham and Richmond and Howard was able to speak to the children and share his experiences of how he dealt with depression.
God certainly came up trumps again… You should never doubt God when He asks you to do something positive for the benefit of others which at the time seemed impossible. God is an expert at making the impossible possible.

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