So how safe is this hostel?

FROM the outside, the Southview probation hostel looks like any of the substantial, red-brick guest-houses for which York is famed. Hardly surprising, since that is exactly what it once was.

Today, however, Southview is home to a very different type of guest. No travelling salesmen or genteel retired ladies on a week-long break in York here.

The 22 men staying at Southview in Boroughbridge Road are all either convicted offenders serving out the remaining, non-custodial part of their sentence after a spell in prison, or suspects on bail awaiting trial.

The hostel hit the headlines yesterday after it emerged that rapist Christopher Scott was living at Southview on licence, after having served half of a four-year jail term for rape, when he launched a brutal sexual assault on a woman in a York bar.

Scott yesterday admitted two charges of attempted rape and was jailed for life.

But the fact he was able to commit the assault while staying at the hostel inevitably raised questions about the regime at Southview. Just how safe it is to have rapists and other convicted criminals living at a hostel like this in the heart of the community?

Far better that they come to a place like Southview when they finish the prison element of their sentence, than that they simply be released into the community and left to their own devices, pointed out North Yorkshire's assistant chief probation officer Mike Ryan robustly.

Southview is a probation service "approved premises" - the only one in North Yorkshire - and as such residents are subjected to the strictest constraints and supervision possible outside a prison.

There is a strict 11pm to 7am curfew - the hostel's doors are automatically locked outside those times. Some residents face much stricter curfew and reporting restrictions as a condition of their release on licence, such as being required to report at the hostel at midday and again at 5pm.

The hostel is staffed night and day by trained probation service staff, and residents are subject to random drug and alcohol tests.

There are CCTV cameras in every corridor and communal room. No drugs or alcohol are allowed on the premises, and visitors are allowed in public areas at the hostel only at certain times.

A full risk assessment is carried out on all offenders who come to the hostel before they are admitted - and any infringement of hostel rules will be dealt with extremely firmly, often by being sent back to prison.

The fact is that the law of the land is that having served the prison element of their sentence, many offenders are released into the community on licence to serve the remainder of their sentence there, Mr Ryan said.

"The sentence passed is the sentence served," he said. "Some prisoners are required to serve the rest of their sentence in an approved premises. Release to this kind of environment is a much better option than being released to their own devices without any constraints."

Southview manager Neil Lomas used to work in prisons - and he can vouch for the fact that many of the rules at the hostel are as strict as those in prison.

There is a pool table and TV in the communal lounge area, for instance - but neither are allowed to be used before 2.30pm.

Any residents who are found flouting the hostel's rules, or the conditions of their licence, are dealt with firmly.

"We had someone arrive on Friday who arrived late," he said. "His licence said he had to be here by a certain time of day, so he wouldn't be able to get access to any drugs. He was late, he was given a warning, then, having subsequently failed a drugs test he was removed straight back to prison. He did not pass Go."

But if the regime at Southview is so strict, how was Christopher Scott out at lunchtime and able to visit a bar in York, where he sexually assaulted his latest victim?

Hostels such as Southview offer the best form of supervision outside a prison, said Mr Ryan - but they are not prisons.

One of the aims is to try to help offenders re-integrate into the community on their release from prison.

All offenders who come to Southview are first assessed for risk, and a management programme is drawn up for them, including details of when they can come and go.

But the point of Southview is to enable residents to get access to training, drugs and alcohol rehabilitation programmes - and possible jobs.

Five of the 22 men living at Southview at the moment hold down jobs during the day, and others are looking for work.

There are good reasons for trying to help former offenders get their lives back on track, Mr Ryan said.

First of all, as a society it was important that we do not give up on people - not even on former offenders.

But it also made sense to try to help offenders become useful members of society again. "They can become taxpayers, instead of a burden on the taxpayer," he said.

But since Southview isn't a prison, its residents must, within the terms of their licence, be able to come and go. That is all a part of the process of learning to live in the community again, he said.

"They are not left to walk the streets," he said. "But they can choose to go out. Where a particular risk can be identified we can exercise different levels of control on people's freedom, but this is not a prison and they can come and go."

Inevitably, said Mr Ryan, there would sometimes be residents who reoffended.

"Every time that happens, that is another victim," he said. "We want people to know that we are concerned about that, and we share the distress when a further offence is committed.

"All we can do is continue to provide the best regime that can be provided, and offer the best protection for the public that can be offered.

"We cannot control people 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

"That individual Scott is responsible for what he has done and has been held to account for his actions. As soon as we became aware that there were issues that he was not complying with his licence, he was returned to prison.

"But again, people returning to the community from prison can be better managed in an approved premises than any other environment."

Hostel's useful' aim

THE AIM of hostels such as Southview, according to the probation service, is to release ex-offenders into the community in such a way that they can begin to reintegrate, while at the same time protecting the public.

Offenders staying at Southview have committed the full spectrum of offences, says Southview manager Neil Lomas.

Does that include rape, and even murder? "The whole range of offences," Mr Lomas confirmed.

All are subjected to an "in-depth risk assessment", with input from local communities, medics, psychiatrists and others. "The main aim is to protect the public," Mr Lomas said.

Residents include suspects on bail awaiting trial, and offenders who have served time in prison and been released on licence to serve the remainder of their sentences under strict supervision.

While at Southview, they have access to programmes designed to help them integrate. These include drugs and alcohol rehabilitation schemes, training and education, and jobs programmes.

They are also helped to confront their reasons for offending.

Residents at the centre were unwilling to talk to The Press yesterday. But previous residents have spoken of how the hostel gave them a second chance.

One former resident, Mark, 43, who was at Southview for well over a year following an eight year jail sentence for robbery and assault, told how the hostel had helped him learn about the impact of his previous criminal behaviour.

"I had a very good link worker and I completed a full-time training course in networking computers," he said.

Mark made friends at college and was planning to start another course, with the aim of setting up his own business.

"I now have goals," he said.

Former heroin addict, John, 33, had moved out to live in a shared flat after being sent to Southview for eight months.

Staff helped him kick his drug habit and he also participated on community work scheme PACY.

He was planning to start Progress To Work, a Compass training course, shortly after speaking to The Press.

What the local residents think...

RESIDENTS living near Southview seem to have mixed views on whether the probation hostel should be there or not.

Jane Green, 39, who lives in Carr Lane, will not even let her three children walk past the probation hostel on their own.

Just the thought that it might house paedophiles makes her shiver, she says. The fact that it is close to Poppleton Road School makes it worse, she adds.

"My children are getting to the age when they want to walk to school on their own, but I won't allow it," she said. "I don't worry about my own safety, but I do worry about my sister, who goes out into town. It seems they are allowed to wander into town and go for a drink, so I do worry.

"They should have stricter curfews."

Southview is a concern for everybody, she believes, but she would not necessarily want to know more about its residents.

"I think the more you know, the more you worry," she said. "I really worry about my children."

A resident of nearby Malvern Avenue, who did not wish to be named, said Southview had not caused her any problems.

"We tried to protest against it when we first heard about it, but I haven't seen any trouble as a result of it being here," she said.

"I thought it would be just little offences that people were in there for though, I didn't realise it was crimes such as rape.

"I'd just like it not to be there at all really."

Another resident of Malvern Avenue, a married father-of-three, had only just moved in.

He was not worried for himself, he said, but was concerned for his wife and children.

"I don't think a place like that should be within the community," he said. "I wouldn't like to know more about the people in there though; I think I'd rather be ignorant because if I knew more about it I'd worry."

Meanwhile, Kathleen Dunbar, 70, also of Malvern Avenue, said she did not like living near the hostel.

"I do worry there might be more crime," she said. "You don't know who is in there or what they've done and why they're in there."