Bilal Fawaz: 'I became best friends with darkness and pain a long time ago'

After being abused as a boy in Nigeria and trafficked to London at 14, boxing and piano playing gave him hope and at 32 Bilal Fawaz is finally able to fight professionally

There is beauty in darkness," Bilal Fawaz says with a poetic flourish as we sit on an old bench outside the Cricklewood Boxing Gym in this stark corner of north-west London. I became best friends with darkness and pain a long time ago."

The sky is sombre, with black clouds rolling in, and Fawaz talks with electrifying force. He is a newly professional boxer but his past is haunting and his future uncertain. Fawaz was abused as a boy in Nigeria and then trafficked to London.