Like everyone else, I find some things interest me more than others, which is why I was particularly intrigued to hear of Lord Laming’s report into the British care system. His review, ‘In Care, Out of Trouble,’ describes how looked-after children are often prosecuted for challenging behaviour that would normally be dealt with in the family home, with the tragic result that half of children in custody in England and Wales have, at some time, been in care.

I have something of a professional interest in all of this having spent some time as a Child Protection Officer and my wife as the housemother of a children’s home in Gwent. But my interest goes much deeper. Lord Laming’s report reminded me of a lovely lad we cared for, in fact almost adopted. Sadly, Stephen (not his real name) died of a drug overdose before he reached his 13th birthday, and I can still remember the sense of shock that we both felt when we heard his name announced on the early evening news. We loved him, despaired for him and will always treasure the opportunities we had to care for him.

Stephen did not know his parents, and like many others spent his earliest years being shifted from care home to care home, and foster home to foster home, as professionals and volunteers sought to cope with his challenging behaviour. Sadly, he never found a place he could really call home or a group he could really identify as his family. I guess we were the closest he ever found which is why he spent many an interesting hour visiting us following our move to Pembrokeshire.

Stephen was a loveable rogue. Items tended to disappear whenever he stayed with us, and eyebrows were raised whenever he stepped out of the manse door wrapped in a large Union Jack Flag and sporting his shining Doc Martin shoes. He spent many a month in prison too. And I still vividly remember the day I turned up for a prearranged visit only to be told he could not be found! It seems that he was playing poker in a friend’s cell, but the staff had no idea where he was at the time. What really amused me was their unwillingness to give him a handwritten note to assure him I had turned up. I was told that this would have been a breach of security. Ah well, such are the ways of British bureaucracy!

But much as I feel a sense of sadness for Stephen’s tragically short life, I also feel a deep sense of hope too because just before he died, Stephen was baptised as a Christian believer. And we had to admit he was a changed young man. He was much, much happier and had an exciting future ahead of him having been accepted on a degree course in media studies. I am sure the overdose was an accident and that the drug’s obnoxious pull proved just too much for an emotionally vulnerable youngster.

But as I look back and think of that smiling young man stepping out of a baptismal pool in Newport, Gwent, I remind myself that I can now look forward to the day when he will step out of his grave to enjoy a new life free of pain and suffering because ‘the old order of things’ will have passed away. For that’s what it means to be a Christian: nothing, not even our failures and our personal weaknesses can separate us from the love of God.

Rob James is a Baptist Pastor broadcaster and writer who currently operates as a church and media consultant for the Evangelical Alliance Wales. He is available for preaching and teaching throughout Wales and can be contacted at [email protected]