A FORMER soldier who says she found God when under attack in Iraq is quickly becoming the nation’s brightest gospel singing star.

Nikki Hopkins, 26, a shy single mother who never sang in public until a few years ago, has won a national gospel singing competition.

She took the title of best gospel singer in the Gospel Rock annual talent search, held in London, in July.

Since her win, she has released a song on i-tunes, called There Is a Love, and is in talks this week with record producers to create an album of contemporary Christian music.

Ms Hopkins, from Darlington, joined the gospel choir at the Xcel Church, in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, when she left the Army after falling pregnant with her first child.

She said: “I was brought up going to a Pentecostal Church with my family, but we stopped going when I was 12.

“When I was in Iraq serving as a medic, I feared for my life and it set something off inside me. I started to think about God.

“I loved the Army, but then I had to leave. When I came back I started going to church again with my mum.”

She said she had never performed in front of anyone before she joined the choir at Xcel.

“I was absolutely terrified of singing at first,” she said.

“But I was encouraged to start singing backing vocals for some of the other singers, then I started co-leading the services.”

Ms Hopkins is now worship leader at Darlington’s Xcel church, held in the Dolphin Centre, which is an off-shoot of the church in Newton Aycliffe.

She says she is “overwhelmed”

by what has happened to her in the past few months, and is balancing performing with Gospel Rock around the country with working part-time in a clothes shop and looking after her daughters, Megan, six, and Keira, four.

“I would never, ever have had the courage to get up and sing had I not been encouraged by members of my church and my faith,” she said.