N-E businessman may build new prisons

9:29pm Friday 4th July 2008

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A BUSINESSMAN who already owns a string of schools wants to start building new prisons.

Sir Peter Vardy has been involved in education for years but now wants to turn his expertise to help those who he believes the system has failed.

"Through the Vardy Foundation, we are looking at how we can help children coming out of foster care and young people coming out of young offenders' institutes."

Sir Peter Vardy

The Vardy Foundation has helped build colleges in Gateshead, Middlesbrough and Doncaster, with a fourth on the way in Blyth, Northumberland.

The move comes after Sir Peter visited a young offenders' institution, bringing him face-to-face with the reality of life on the inside - and the outside.

"Forty-nine per cent of the inmates were foster children and the reoffending rate was 80 per cent" he said.

"No one had really valued these people. One man had been in 22 different foster homes."

Now Sir Peter wants to see a joined-up approach which will provide help and support for young people emerging from foster care to stop them getting into trouble with the law - and offer a helping hand to those who do.

"Through the Vardy Foundation, we are looking at how we can help children coming out of foster care and young people coming out of young offenders' institutes," he said.

"Rehabilitation of prisoners, housing for those that need it; there is a whole range of projects to work with.

"There is now going to be the opportunity to build prisons. I would very much like to look at how we can get involved with that."

Joined-up services would provide help to support ex-cons in the community.

"They are often not coming out to a home, they are not coming out to a community. Very often their family has given up on them," said Sir Peter.

"If we can get involved when they first go into prison, then housing could be arranged for them when they come out, a circle of contacts and friends could be established, work could be arranged to try to get them into employment."