Peter Lyndon-James wins council seat with criminal story

Peter Lyndon-James was thrown in prison when he was nine and by the age of 30 was selling $40,000 worth of meth a day.

But this weekend he won a resounding local council election victory after admitting his startling criminal past and asking voters for forgiveness.

Now a ‘tough love’ drugs campaigner, he came first with 2,707 votes for the Altone ward in the City of Swan in Perth, ousting the sitting mayor in the process.

Peter Lyndon-James won resounding Perth local council election victory after admitting his startling criminal past including drug dealing and STDs and asking voters for forgiveness

Among his shocking list of admissions were dealing guns and explosives, armed robberies, and cheating on his wife with hundreds of prostitutes.

‘I have spent 26 years of my life in and out of jails and institutions starting from the age of nine, and had a criminal record longer than most,’ he wrote in a brutally honest post on his campaign Facebook page.

‘I’ve broken into houses, stolen cars, mugged many people, I’ve sold drugs and guns, had genital warts, gonorrhea, crabs, herpes and more.’ 

‘I’ve played doctors and nurses as a child, I’ve fondled another boy’s genitals growing up, I’ve also been sexually molested by a male as a child.

‘I have slept with hundreds of prostitutes behind my wife’s back as well as with many other women.’

Mr Lyndon-James (pictured with Pauline Hanson) was was thrown in prison when he was nine and by the age of 30 was selling $40,000 worth of meth a day as well as guns and explosives.

Mr Lyndon-James (pictured with Pauline Hanson) was was thrown in prison when he was nine and by the age of 30 was selling $40,000 worth of meth a day as well as guns and explosives.

The councilor-elect even admitted to passing his STDs on to others, though never intentionally, and never paying taxes.

‘I, Peter Lyndon-James, have done all of the above and more. If it’s not on there I have probably done it,’ he wrote. 

His devastating life story began when he was seven and his father ran off with the babysitter, sending his mother into a downward spiral of alcoholism.

She was regularly beaten by her boyfriend and every time she went to rehab he would run away from home.

Finally the authorities had enough and he was stripped naked, given six comic books, and sent to Longmore boys prison.

‘And I remember when they pushed me into the prison cell I started bawling my eyes out crying and saying ‘let me out, I’ll behave, I won’t run away again’,’ he said.

His brutally honest Facebook post confessed to cheating on wife with hundreds of prostitutes and getting STDs he passed on to many other partners

His brutally honest Facebook post confessed to cheating on wife with hundreds of prostitutes and getting STDs he passed on to many other partners

But the friends in made behind bars turned him into hardened criminal who spent seven years of his childhood locked up.

‘I’d be out for a day, back in for six months. Out for a month, back in for 11 months,’ he said.

As a young adult be became a career criminal, and by age 30 he had served time in every prison in Western Australia.

‘My whole life I just wanted to be a geek, a normal person… living with ​m​um & ​d​ad, going to one school, going on family holidays and picnics even playing sports and all the stuff that people take for granted,’ he said.

He eventually converted to Christianity and turned his live around, founding Australia's 'toughest' drug rehab centre where patients go cold turkey

He eventually converted to Christianity and turned his live around, founding Australia’s ‘toughest’ drug rehab centre where patients go cold turkey

‘But every time I tried to hang around with normal people, I felt like I was weird, I didn’t belong.

‘So I went back to where I felt comfortable, but the problem is where I felt comfortable everyone was doing what I didn’t want to do and I was trapped.

‘You can get the prisoner our of the prison but you need to get the prison out of the prisoner.’

After a life-changing experience he became a Christian and spent three years earning a Diploma in Theology, going on to be a volunteer chaplain at Acacia prison.

Five years ago he started Shalom House, which he describes as Australia’s toughest drug rehabilitation centre where addicts must go cold turkey.

Patients don’t just give up drugs, but also cigarettes and must agree to get their heads shaved and go to Christian church services three times a week.

Patients don't just give up drugs, but also cigarettes and must agree to get their heads shaved (pictured) and go to Christian church services three times a week

Patients don’t just give up drugs, but also cigarettes and must agree to get their heads shaved (pictured) and go to Christian church services three times a week

They are not allowed television, radio, books and magazines and work 9-5 on the property in Perth’s Swan Valley and volunteer for community projects.

The program receives no government funding and is entirely financed by $300-a-week payments from its residents. 

Shalom House now has 55 staff and many more volunteers helping 120 patients across 10 facilities.

In its first four years only 13 people – less than 10 per cent – completed the entire program, but all had successfully turned their lives around.

Shalom House now has 55 staff and many more volunteers helping 120 patients across 10 facilities

Shalom House now has 55 staff and many more volunteers helping 120 patients across 10 facilities

Mr Lyndon-James sought to atone for his many sins and countless people he had hurt, telling voters he was a changed man days before the election.

‘All I can say is that if you are a victim of my life or my choices, if you are a victim of my selfishness and stupidity – I am sorry, I am so very, very sorry,’ he wrote.

‘I have no excuse for what have done to you or to any other person, what I have done was and is wrong and I am 100% to blame, there is nothing I can say in my defence.

‘Please I ask that you would forgive me as I am genuinely sorry for my actions and wish I could change what I have done as well as the life I have lived, but I can’t. 

‘All I can do is take ownership of my mistakes and try my best not to do it again.’

Mr Lyndon-James sought to atone for his many sins and countless people he had hurt, telling voters he was a changed man days before the election

Mr Lyndon-James sought to atone for his many sins and countless people he had hurt, telling voters he was a changed man days before the election

Mr Lyndon-James said he cared about people and the old him was dead, with the new one trying to make up for what he had done.

‘Today I am trying my best to be the best me I can be. I care about people, I care about them in the way I need to not in the way they want me to,’ he wrote.

‘I don’t care if you or any person on the face of this planet likes me, not even the slightest. But I do care what God thinks of me.’

‘I welcome any person to look over all of my life, including my finances and if there are areas in me or what I do that aren’t done with honesty, integrity and transparency then help me see what I can’t see to make the changes that I need to make. 

‘I am trying my best, please help me to try better.’

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