Homeless man lands £20,000 City job

A down-and-out who has just landed a £20,000 City job finds his life becoming even more like a fairy tale today when he visits a Prince.

Darren Woods who now works for top accountancy firm KPMG, is one of 12 people who will be telling the Prince of Wales how they changed their life, with help from charity Business Action on Homelessness.

Mr Woods, who will be presented with an award by the Prince, is leading an extraordinary double life. He is still sleeping rough in a doorway near Victoria station, as he has been for the past nine months after losing his home and his job as a stable lad in the North-East.

But for the last three months he has woken every morning, spruced himself up and headed off to work in the City for KPMG, one of the biggest accountancy firms in the world.

This week the firm gave him a permanent place on their accountancy trainee scheme with a salary of about £20,000, which will allow him to find a place to live and start to rebuild his life

It is a far cry from the 33-year-old's life before it was transformed by the Business in the Community project, of which Prince Charles is president. The charity works to ensure that large companies work in a socially responsible way. Last October, the charity took a group of business leaders to meet the capital's down and outs to see how the other half live.

Among those taking part was the chief executive of engineering giant Invensys, who met Mr Woods and got him a two-week work experience placement inputting data for the firm.

This was followed by a training course and another work experience opportunity with KPMG, who were so impressed with Mr Woods that they offered him his new job.

A spokesman for KPMG said: "We are absolutely delighted for Mr Woods. He has been given a place on our training scheme based on his talent."

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