A former Triad gangster who was charged with 500 crimes has been appointed a vicar in a Mersyside parish.

The Rev Kim Goh, formerly known as the 'Chinese Godfather', was the head of a Triad sect across the UK in the 1980s, and said he lived a life of 'lust and dope', reports the Daily Mail.

He admits he travelled the world causing havoc, fighting people with ice picks and machetes, as well as jumping off open-top buses while drunk.

But he insists that his life of crime and violence is firmly behind him – and it was during his time in prison that he decided to join 'God's gang'.

The self-confessed gambler has now been a committed Methodist minister for the past 11 years.

Mr Goh, 62, told the Liverpool Echo newspaper about his dark days, and recounted how he chased people with an ice pick around Piccadilly Circus, and brandished machetes during fights in Spain.

He says that on one occasion he leapt from the roof of an open top bus while drunk and woke up in a Middlesex hospital to discover his skull had been stitched back together.

Rev Kim was born in Singapore but left home at 18 and travelled around the world.

He went across America, throughout Europe and eventually landed in the UK, where he became involved with the Triads and moved up in the organisation.

Rev Kim told the newspaper: “I left home as a teenager because I didn't get on with my parents, and committed crime all over the world.

“I moved into a world of lust and dope and it suited me very well.”

But his violent ways caught up with him and he was arrested in 1985 and sent to a category A prison in Leeds for a litany of crimes including extortion, actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm.

He was sentenced to four years, and while imprisoned, his life turned a corner when he says God chastised him for his lifestyle on his first day behind bars.

Mr Goh said he then volunteered to clean the chapel to get away from his cell and, while swearing and blaming God for his punishment, says he was personally rebuked for his behaviour.

On his release, Mr Goh joined a church. He studied at theological college and has been a Methodist minister for 11 years.

He has been married to wife Mary for 18 years, and has written a book, Conquering The Dragon, about his life as a Triad.

The couple arrived in Maghull, Merseyside recently, and this month he took over from the Rev Andrew Longshaw as minister at the Methodist churches in Maghull, Old Roan and Fazakerley.

His last post was in Loughborough where he looked after four churches.