A prisoner at a Yorkshire jail is earning more than the officers through a day-release scheme, angry staff claimed today.

The inmate from Wealstun Prison, near Wetherby, is said to drive around in a Ford Galaxy people-carrier, carry a mobile phone and "take home" more than £600 a week - in excess of £30,000 a year - from his job in York.

Another inmate is reported to earn £18,000 a year on the re-settlement scheme, which was launched in January and is intended to help low-category prisoners prepare themselves for life on the outside.

The scheme was condemned today as "disgusting and morally wrong" by the Prison Officers Association.

"Call me old-fashioned but if they have committed a crime they should be in here paying their debt to society," said the association's chairman at Wealstun, Nigel Hirst, speaking out after the Evening Press had received an anonymous letter revealing details of the "immoral" scheme.

"I think there is definitely a need for open prisons and schemes to rehabilitate prisoners back into the community, but this is going too far."

But governor Stacey Tasker vigorously defended the scheme today. She said the high-earning inmate was totally atypical, with the average wage only around £150 a week.

She said inmates going out to work had to receive the going rate or she could be accused of wage under-cutting. She said such schemes were important in helping to prevent re-offending by inmates on being released into the community. They cut re-conviction by more than 30 per cent.

Prisoners in the last few months of their sentence were carefully assessed before going out to work in jobs which they would continue in on being released. There was no point in sending them out to do the wrong work.

She stressed that inmates made a contribution of up to £24 towards their board and lodging and 10p for every £1 they earned went towards victim support groups. Most of their earnings had to be put into an account and could not be spent inside.

Some were allowed their own vehicle because they could not be taken each day to work in a prison van.

But Mr Hirst said: "It is morally wrong. Why put them in prison when they are allowed to go out working? As it is, they spend Monday to Friday out earning, then they get a day a week off to go out with their families. They are only ever here for a full day on a Sunday."It is disgusting as far as I am concerned. I really wonder what the public would think if they knew."

Staff at the prison have written a strongly-worded letter of protest to the governor.

A prison officer said: "The cashier is tearing her hair out because she has to look after any money they bring in, and there is a lot of it coming through the gates. Anyone would think we were a bank."

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