His past finally caught up with him.

Wollongong man Matty Kratiuk had to suffer the consequences of his violent actions if he wanted to remove the shackles.

He had plans to travel the world, share the brutal truths of his drug-fueled days as ‘’killa’’ the outlaw bikie gang standover man in the hope of getting through to others still on the soul-destroying path he’d once chosen.

He’d found a way out of his cockroach-infested dungeon where robbing and terrorising people was second nature.

But first, in order to travel the world, Matty needed to sort one major hitch – his outstanding warrant in Queensland, the state where he wreaked the most havoc.

He was known for robberies, fraud, drug peddling, intimidating, ‘’all kinds of things ... I was looking at doing time’’.

So, faced with two options – cross the border and cop what was coming to him or steer clear and stay in Wollongong – he turned to God for the answer.

‘’I prayed to God for a while, put it in his hands, then I knew I had to do it and I thought God’s got this.’’

Matty called Queensland police, telling them of his plans to surrender. 

After identifying himself he recalls hearing the words ‘’yep, we know who you are, one of our regulars’’.

‘’Mate I’m coming but the difference is I’m a Christian these days and I’m coming up to speak in church,’’ Matty told the voice on the other end of the line.

‘’They said ‘make no mistake, when you come here you’re going to prison’ but my faith didn’t waver.’’

He flew in at 10pm one November night, armed with references from Salvation Army ministers, a Mercury newspaper article and other proof of his transformation and drug rehabilitation.

He went straight to a Brisbane police station and was locked up.

‘’Seven years ago I was in the exact same cell of the watch house,’’ he recalls.

‘’I’d been on the run for six months and I was on my way to jail. Back then and I was so anxious.

‘’I tried to look like I’m staunch, tough, but inside I’m just dying, feeling like I’m being eaten by the devil.

‘’All these emotions, anxiousness, fear, anger, they come back to me, yet I’m sitting in this cell, looking at the same outcome possibly, and I don’t flinch, I’m just smiling.’’

The guard searches Matty and asks why the smile? ‘’And I say ‘listen, man, this is the holy spirit.’ ’’

There may have been some divine intervention because what happened over the next couple of weeks is almost miraculous.

From the watch-house boss getting him a quick hearing, to a barrister, also Christian, offering her services for free, to the magistrate’s compassion for his story, Matty walked free.

‘’The magistrate read all the stuff … then tells me to stand,’’ he recalls, still buzzing with disbelief.

‘’The magistrate says ‘not only is the evidence of your transformation overwhelming, it’s inspiring.

‘’You flew up, handed yourself in, spent the night in jail and all the work you do in community. I’m throwing the charges out.’’

‘’It was just a God moment i reckon. So blessed man.’’

Back on his home turf and free from his past crimes, Matty doesn’t pretend his transformation has been easy.

He has moments where the ‘’old Matty creeps back in’’, telling him he’s not good enough, doesn’t deserve to be speaking at church events, doesn’t deserve anything.

But he remembers that moment when he changed from Killa to Matty – the man so pumped with enthusiasm for sharing his Christian faith you could be forgiven for thinking he is high on much more than life.

Killa was a crim who’d lost it all. And there he stood with  ‘’I was in rehab I’d been there six weeks. I’m the ex- gang member, the ex-drug addict,’’ he recalls. 

Step back three months and Killa had a gun to his own head. Booted out of his bikie club, dethroned from his role as feared standover man, he’d hit rock bottom.

‘’I clocked it back, I stuck it to my face, I was that far away from death, that far away in a spiritual sense from spending the rest of my life in hell,’’ he says.

‘’I was just about to pull the trigger, I didn’t know anything about god then, but something happened, I saw my mum and my little brother’s face. I dropped the gun and it actually went off.

‘’I saw them, they looked so sad. I hadn’t spoken to them in ages. I’d pushed them all away. That’s the day I picked up my phone and I punched in ‘rehab’.’’

A google search gave him Dooralong Transformation Centre on the NSW Central Coast.

‘’It looked like a five-star resort. Here’s me living with cockroaches in the sink, the crap on the floor … I’m 65kg ringing wet, you know, now I’m nearly 100kg.

‘’It was horrible. Even in my sleep I felt like I was being tortured, my soul was gone, I was kicking doors in, robbing people to eat, and I ended up in this rehab.’’

‘’I’d gone from being killer, known all around the world. I went from being this infamous, egotistical idiot, to a bloke within a moment who’d lost everything, chucked out for taking drugs.

‘’My notoriety, my fame, that stuff that I really didn’t need anyway, was gone. 

‘’So I’m in this rehab, angry and violent .. anyone that came in with tattoos I’d be on my toes ready. I was like ‘this is my house you know’, that crazy ‘I’m the king of rehab’ talk, what a claim to fame that is.’’

One day he snarled and fired venom at the wrong person - the wife of the man running the rehab centre.

‘’I was in a toxic state and I snapped at her not realising who she was. When they told me I thought ‘that’s it, I’m gone’.

‘’I’m sitting at this table with my head in my hands thinking I’m about to get booted out and how I’m gonna kill myself. 

But the lady came back. And what she did next changed Matty’s life.

‘’She asked me for a hug. It put me right off. Me a hug? What the f..k? I thought what are you doing?

The woman holding Matty close despite the bristling of his muscle bound-heavily inked body. ‘’I felt this wet shit start coming down my cheek,’’ he says.

‘’I’m like what the f...k is going on here. Up until that very moment the whole world had me in the too-hard basket. I put myself there. I was unlovable, move onto the next guy.

‘’What she did in that second was break down a 33-year wall. She just busted right through it. And she gave God a face.’’

When the old Matty creeps in these days and tries to rattle the psyche of the God-loving guy, he thinks about his close friend Andrew Chan - the Bali Nine member who’s execution cut him to the core.

The pair exchanged letters after an introduction from a mutual Christian friend.

‘’I’ve never seen a man like him. If you want to talk about testing your faith I don’t know that there is a greater way than staring 12 bullets in the face,’’ Matty says.

When he heard media reports Chan could have a last-minute reprieve, his heart lifted. He still has the written exchanges he shared with the death row inmate.

‘’How are you, brother? I read today there was a meeting with your representation … is this true? Praise God. Could this be God’s intervention that we’ve been praying for?

Chan responds: ‘’Matty I don’t know, if they are praise Jesus, if they are not, praise Jesus. I’m good.’’

‘’He set the bar for me,’’ reflects Matty. ‘’He changed my life. Because I get into moments now, tough moments,  and I think back to what he said. Praise God either way you know? That’s it right there.’’

Matty Kratiuk travels the country, giving inspirational talks. Find him at gunstogod.com or through his Facebook page, Matty K.