KING ARTHUR! Arthur White is king of the weights but he now knows real strength comes from the King of kings

Record-breaking weight-lifter finds mighty power

If you met Arthur White walking down a dark alley, you’d probably want to cross the road while walking a little faster

If Arthur looks like a power lifter, body builder and all-round physical giant, that’s because he is — in all three categories. He is a World Champion powerlifter with a 26-year record for lifting 857.75 pounds. In addition, he has won numerous British titles, six European titles and four world titles.

Yet this he-man with a growling voice admits he would be nowhere if it wasn’t for a slip of a 14-year-old girl. That girl is his daughter, Emma.

“I’d probably be dead or lying drugged up somewhere, an old has-been living on his drunken memories,” he says.

“Emma’s prayers saved me, and not just physically. Her prayers brought me to Jesus.”

Arthur is one of the founders of a remarkable team of bouncers, weightlifters, debt collectors, criminals, drug dealers and gangsters. Correction, those descriptions may be on their CVs, but their current lives are further away than Arthur White could throw a 20lb steel ball. And that’s some distance. The team form a Christian outreach called Tough Talk.

Arthur himself admits he carried a gun, and knew how to use it. He also favoured a knife and if those failed, well, there was nothing like smashing a few noses with his sledgehammer of a fist.

“I always loved physical exercise and started power lifting when I was just 14,” he says. “I had no Christian background and relied on my own wits and strength to get ahead. If people got in my way, I’d knock them down without a second thought. I was very violent.”

In the high-pressure world of powerlifting, Arthur encountered a twilight world of drug-taking and boozing. He was hooked on cocaine for ten years, helped along with a taste for steroids with a sideline in good-looking women who flocked around the well-toned power lifters.

“I was a cheat, a drug taker and adulterer,” he adds. “All the while I had a successful building business, a lovely wife and family. But my lust for winning and the drugs saw me lose all that. I lost my family, my business, my house, my cars and my reputation. I don’t think I could have gone any lower.”

It was then Emma went in a different direction. She started attending a local church at the same time her dad decided to walk out on the family.

“Emma prayed for me but I wasn’t interested,” adds Arthur. “I could only see myself and what I needed. My wife, Jackie, took me back several times but I always let her down.”

Looking out for himself as ever, Arthur knew he needed to kick his cocaine habit if he was to keep winning titles. Emma told him about a Christian counsellor who could help. Arthur was interested in the counselling but not the Christian part.

ULTIMATE COMPETITOR: Arthur in the World Masters Powerlifting Championships in 2008

“I expected a religious sermon and all the usual jargon about God, but the way this guy spoke about Jesus knocked me over,” says Arthur. “I felt an incredible sense of peace and joy and love, like nothing I’d experienced before. One morning, while walking through Spitalfields market in the East End of London, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and my life changed.”

That was 1993. Arthur and Jackie renewed their marriage vows and both were baptised. They attend a church in Cornwall where they now live. Arthur kicked the cocaine habit and won another powerlifting World Championship — drug-free this time.

He travels the country with Tough Talk, visiting prisons and doing street evangelism, telling his own testimony and lifting weights that would break most people’s backs.

“One day while we were in a shopping precinct, a young guy came over,” recalls Arthur. “He was really drunk and shouting a lot. I listened to him and before he left, gave him a DVD about Tough Talk.

“A few weeks later, he turned up at another event, sober and wanting to talk. He had accepted Jesus and wanted to know more about Christianity. He now works with Tough Talk as one of the team.”

As the guys get ready for their latest bookings, Arthur and the powerlifting team know they owe so much to a little girl who lifted her dad in prayer and helped him find a new strength — from Jesus.