‘I was going to cut his throat’: Ex-criminal enforcer turned bishop reveals how he planned to kill rapist
“I should have been dead many times,” says Pastor Mick Fleming.
The 57-year-old has survived several attempts on his life after working as an enforcer for the criminal underworld.
He narrowly avoided being killed in a drive-by shooting when he felt bullets “whizz” past his body. “I think that was the closest I came to be being murdered,” Mick tells Sky News.
He also survived his own attempt to kill himself when he pointed a gun at his head, pulled the trigger but the weapon failed to fire.
“I dropped the gun and I cried,” he says.
“It was the first time I’d cried since I was little boy.”
After years of violence and drug use, Mick says he had grown to “despise” himself.
He suffered two traumatic events growing up in Burnley, Lancashire, that sent his life spiralling into crime and substance abuse.
Aged 11, he says he was raped by a stranger in a park as he walked to school.
Mick Fleming pictured as a boy
“I felt a hand over my mouth and I was dragged into this bandstand,” Mick says.
“I was petrified. I still sometimes think about it. It hasn’t gone away.”
The next day, Mick was told his 20-year-old sister Ann had suffered a heart attack and died in her father’s arms.
“My dad came through the front door and shouted: ‘Come down, your sister’s dead’,” he says.
“It was cold and blunt… then he broke down. He was a tough guy my dad, but a nice man. I’d never seen him cry.”
Mick Fleming says he began dealing drugs as a teenager
Life of crime
Mick says he went “inward” and started imagining carrying out crimes like pickpocketing “to escape the real world”.
Soon after, he started stealing and dealing drugs as a teenager before working as an enforcer collecting debts for criminals.
He admits there was “a lot of violence” and that his family described him as “demonic” at that time. It was not until 2009 that his life changed.
Mick says he spent years dealing with drug abuse
Armed with a gun wrapped in a plastic bag, Mick went to collect a debt from a man outside a gym. But when he walked towards his target, he realised the man was holding hands with two little girls – and there appeared to be “light shining off their hands”.
“It was a really surreal moment,” he says. “I felt sick. I started to cough and splutter and I couldn’t see.
“I felt this thing in the pit of my stomach. It was a horrible, dark feeling – like a sickness.
“I got back in the car and drove round the corner into this little industrial unit and pulled over. I was throwing my guts up. There was blood everywhere. I looked like I’d been stabbed.”
Mick was an enforcer for the criminal underworld
It was at this point that Mick tried to shoot himself. After he failed, he was later admitted to a psychiatric unit.
“I’ve never had a drink or used drugs since,” Mick says. “I was on a road to recovery from that point on.”
Meeting his rapist – and the plan to kill him
Mick had been clean of drink and drugs for about a year when he says, by chance, he met the man who raped him.
He spotted his attacker in a McDonald’s restaurant. The man was drunk and Mick bought him a cup of tea.
“I knew it was him,” Mick says. “He didn’t know it was me.”
Mick arranged to meet the man the next day with the intention of killing him.
“I went back with a knife in my sock,” he says.
“I was going to cut his throat. I was going to kill him. Everything was building up inside me.”
Mick Fleming is known locally as Pastor Mick
As Mick walked towards the man, he says he imagined killing him, with “clear, vivid pictures” of the brutal act in his mind.
But instead of carrying it out, Mick says he sat down and listened to what the man had to say.
“I didn’t say anything,” Mick explains. “In that moment I got this real understanding. I thought: ‘I’m not going to live in your sin.’
“People say resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. That’s what I’d been doing.
“I didn’t grow to love the guy but, in the end, I can honestly say I didn’t hate him.”
Mick says the man died about two years later.
Becoming a priest
After leaving the psychiatric unit, Mick went on to achieve a degree in theology from the University of Manchester, overcoming difficulties he faced with dyslexia.
Now ordained as a priest and recently consecrated as a bishop, he is known locally as Pastor Mick and runs a charity called Church On The Street, helping people struggling in the cost of living crisis.
Among its services, the charity provides food, mental health support and Citizens’ Advice – and has recently had to start helping families pay for funerals.
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Church helping families in Burnley
“At the moment, it’s far, far worse than the pandemic,” he says. “It’s ordinary people with children who are in dire straits.”
He is also concerned about the impact of the cost of living on mental health and suicide risk.
“I’ve got NHS mental health teams working with us in our building. People can’t afford to have a funeral for their loved ones. It’s horrendous. We pay an undertaker to do the funerals for us and then I do the services for free.”
William and Kate met Pastor Mick during a visit to his charity last year
Meeting William and Kate
Mick’s work was recognised by royalty when Prince William and Kate visited the charity in January last year.
William has since written the foreword to Mick’s book – with a TV series about his life in the works – and he was invited to Kate’s Christmas carol concert in December.
“I got to pray for them which was quite an honour,” Mick says. “I really felt they’re going to need prayers.”
Mick believes William and Kate understand the problems people are facing with the cost of living despite their royal lifestyles.
“Obviously they haven’t experienced it but you don’t have to dead to be an undertaker, do you?” he says.
“They’ve got the ability to open doors and ask questions that need to be asked and point fingers in right directions.”
Mick – who was married with three children during his time as a criminal enforcer – says he has repaired relationships with his family over the years.
“I wasn’t a good father,” he says. “I have to live with that fact.
“I’d want it to be better with my children, that’s the truth. But it’s all right – my family have come to accept me, and love me, and care for me. It’s the best I can do.
“Some of it is my regret around my children. I wish I could turn the clock back with that but I can’t so I accept it and do the best with it.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
A Muslim student has lost a legal challenge against a school previously dubbed Britain’s strictest over its ban on “prayer rituals”.
The pupil, who cannot be named for legal reasons, took the action against Michaela Community School in Brent, north London, claiming the policy “uniquely” affects her faith, with prayer one of its five pillars.
The High Court heard in January how she alleged the school’s stance is “the kind of discrimination which makes religious minorities feel alienated from society”.
Defending the policy, lawyers for the school argued it is “justified” and “proportionate” after it faced death and bomb threats linked to religious observance.
During a two-day hearing, the school’s headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh – commonly referred to as Britain’s strictest – said on X it was defending an environment “where children of all races and religions can thrive”.
She welcomed the judgement as a “victory for all schools” and said they should not be forced to change because one pupil and her mother “don’t like something”, while education minister Gillian Keegan said headteachers are “best placed” to make decisions.
Katharine Birbalsingh.Pic: Geoff Pugh/Shutterstock
The school, which is rated as outstanding by regulator Ofsted, enforces a series of strict rules on students, including a ban on conversations in corridors and groups of more than four anywhere on site.
Around 700 pupils attend the school, half of whom are Muslim.
In a written judgement on Tuesday, Mr Justice Linden said: “She [the pupil] knew that the school is secular and her own evidence is that her mother wished her to go there because it was known to be strict.
“She herself says that, long before the prayer ritual policy was introduced, she and her friends believed that prayer was not permitted at school and she therefore made up for missed prayers when she got home.”
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Ms Birbalsingh, a former government social mobility tsar, introduced the policy in March 2023, after up to 30 students began praying in the school’s yard, using blazers to kneel on.
Lawyers for the school said students seen praying outside contributed to a “concerted campaign” on social media over the school’s approach to religion.
They added Muslim children were “observed to be applying peer pressure” to other Muslim pupils to “act in certain ways”.
The court also heard the school was targeted with a “bomb hoax”, death threats, abuse and “false” allegations of Islamophobia.
Reversing the school’s “emergency” ban would again expose it to “an unacceptable risk of threats”, lawyers said, adding it avoided “the logistical disruption and detriments to other school activities”.
A ‘modest’ request
But the court was also told the pupil is making a “modest” request for permission to pray for around five minutes at lunch time, on dates when faith rules required it – not during lessons.
The student also challenged allegedly unfair decisions to temporarily suspend her from school, which the judge upheld.
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The pupil said she doesn’t agree it would be “too hard” to accommodate pupils who “wished to pray in the lunchbreak”, adding the school is “very well run”.
“Even though I lost, I still feel that I did the right thing in seeking to challenge the ban,” she added. “I tried my best, and was true to myself and my religion.”
Her mother said the case was “rooted in the understanding that prayer isn’t just a desirable act for us – it’s an essential element that shapes our lives as Muslims”.
The prime minister is facing another rebellion from his party over his plans to ban young people from ever smoking again.
Should the Tobacco and Vapes Bill eventually be passed into law, it would be an offence to sell tobacco products to anyone born after 1 January 2009.
This means children aged 15 or younger today will never legally be able to buy a cigarette.
The plan was one of Rishi Sunak‘s three key policies he announced at the Tory party conference last year.
However, some more laissez-faire Conservatives have criticised the ban, meaning the prime minister could have to rely on support from the other side of the Commons to get the bill over the line.
Opponents of the ban include Mr Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, who has described the plans as “profoundly unconservative” and Boris Johnson, who branded the move “nuts”.
Tory MPs have been granted a free vote on the legislation, and several are expected to oppose it when it has its first full debate in the Commons on Tuesday.
However, Labour will back the proposals, making it likely the legislation will clear this first hurdle regardless of Conservative opposition.
The bill would not criminalise smoking itself, and those aged 18 or over can forever buy cigarettes without legal repercussions.
However, older people may have to carry ID if they want to buy cigarettes in the future.
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Youngster on ‘smoke-free generation’
The ban aims to stop people from smoking even before they start as the government pointed to its highly addictive nature with four in five smokers picking it up before the age of 20, remaining addicted for life.
Shops that flout the rules will face on-the-spot fines – money which the government says it will use for further crackdowns.
Earlier this year, New Zealand‘s new coalition government repealed what would have been a world-first ban on young people ever being able to buy cigarettes.
UK’s biggest preventable killer
Smoking is the UK’s biggest preventable killer and is responsible for about 80,000 deaths yearly, causing cancer, lung and heart diseases and chronic bronchitis among other health issues.
The Department of Health and Social Care said in England alone, almost every minute someone with a smoking-related condition is admitted to hospital.
It also costs the NHS and economy an estimated £17bn a year – exceeding the £10bn annual revenue brought in from tobacco taxes.
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Is vaping a cancer risk?
Read more:
Free vapes given to smokers at hospitals could help thousands quit
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Victoria Atkins, health and social care secretary, said the bill would “save thousands of lives”, help the NHS and improve the UK’s productivity.
Ms Atkins said: “The truth is that there is no safe level of tobacco consumption. It is uniquely harmful and that is why we are taking this important action today to protect the next generation.”
Numerous heads have reiterated their support for the bill including Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, Deborah Arnott, head of charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), and the chief of the British Heart Foundation, Dr Charmaine Griffiths.
Ms Arnott said: “New research published by ASH shows that the majority of tobacco retailers and the public, including smokers, support the legislation and the smoke-free generation ambition it is designed to deliver.
“This historic legislation will consign smoking to the ‘ash heap of history’.”
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