Dave Sharp outside St Michael’s Church

A CHILD abuse survivor held a vigil outside the church where he used to sleep almost 50 years ago.

Dave Sharp held a minute’s silence in Camden Road, laid flowers and prayed for all children sleeping on the streets.

The 63-year-old said he wanted to ensure “no one goes through what [he] went through” after being sexually abused in a school in Fife, Scotland, and growing up in care before running away to the capital. Mr Sharp said: “My life spiralled downwards and very quickly I had drug dealers chasing me for money. Within weeks, I had the equivalent of £100-a day equivalent drug habit.”

He slept outside St Michael’s Church in Camden Road and found a family in the other people experiencing homelessness there.

“At any time there could be up to 10 to 12 of us hanging around in the churchyard or derelict buildings but the local people of Camden were amazing. That is why I love going back.

“What kept us there was the local people. The cab drivers that used to come every night with rows and rows of coffee.”

He added: “It was an extraordinary, emotional day standing outside the church yard where I slept when I was homeless almost 50 years ago in Camden Town.”

Mr Sharp was a pupil at the closed-down St Ninian’s School in Fife that was ruled as “a place of abuse and deprivation” in 2021 as part of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.

After 25 years on the streets, Mr Sharp said he managed to get clean and now lives in a flat in Northampton, adding: “I’ve got everything I could ever want. I don’t need to do the lottery. I’ve got my health, no debt, a nice flat. I look around and I can’t believe my luck.”