A COMMUNITY centre has praised the work of offenders paying their debt to society by improving their communities for 40 years.
Community Payback, run by Humberside Probation Trust, uses manpower from offenders – who have been ordered to do community service by magistrates – to improve the community.
One of the groups that has benefited from these hours is West Marsh Community Centre, which has worked with them for the past nine years.
For the past three years, five or six offenders have been working at the centre, which has a building and numerous gardens to tend, for five days a week.
They help clean up the centre and maintain the plants and grass.
Centre manager Neil Barber said: "For a centre like ours, the manpower that we get from Community Payback is essential.
"A lot of people think that there's not much they can do, but many of the people we've had are highly skilled.
"There are one or two that don't want to work, but they are vastly outnumbered by the ones who do – and take a lot of pride in it.
"Some of them even come back to the centre with their kids and even volunteer later on."
One of the offenders, who was helping paint a castle on a wall outside the centre, is 24-year-old Peter Ellis, of Buller Street, Grimsby.
Peter says he was referred to Community Payback after he and a friend tried to take money from a fruit machine in a Nottingham pub.
He said: "I admit that it wasn't a good idea, but I think the drink just took over.
"I've been coming to the centre every week since July and although there's things I would rather be doing on a Friday afternoon, that's my punishment so I'll keep coming back.
"I can see that they do a lot of good work in the community so I take some pride in it.
"My girlfriend has kids so I am thinking of taking them here near Christmas because they are doing visits from Father Christmas."
Paul Dennis, of Humberside Probation Service, said: "These are offenders and this is their penance for crimes committed, ordered by a magistrates court.
"It is also a chance to reintroduce them to society and get them out of the gangs or groups that they were hanging around with before.
"A lot of people think that Community Payback is just picking up litter or cleaning up graffiti but the role has really evolved over the past 40 years."
