Transcript: The Bail Hostel Scandal

NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS-HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY.

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PANORAMA: EXPOSED - THE BAIL HOSTEL SCANDAL.
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE
DATE: 8:11:06

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FRANK PARKER: Hey, bonjour signore!

LUKE: How are you? Alright?

PARKER: Hey, alright now I've seen you me old cocker.

LUKE: Yeah?

PARKER: Yeah.

PAUL KENYON: There comes a time when even the most dangerous offenders are freed from jail. Take Frank Parker, a paedophile who killed a child. He's been released into the care of a bail hostel. He's supposed to live under strict conditions because he's still a danger to children, but he doesn't. There are 2000 offenders living in bail hostels across the UK, including rapists and killers. There may be a hostel in your street. We're told those living there are supervised and monitored to keep us safe - but is it true?

LYNN: The pain was absolutely horrendous. And he just kept... I knew it was a knife, I knew it was a knife going into my back, and it just kept on coming, and coming, and coming, never stopped.

KENYON: Men like Frank Parker are barred from leaving bail hostels at night, but during the day who's watching them? Panorama has been for five months. Now you can discover what really goes on. This residential area of Bristol is home to hundreds of families who may or may not know that they have a collection of criminals for neighbours. The offenders all live under one roof in a bail hostel. Some are here instead of gaol, some are awaiting court, others have served long sentences. The hostels are run by the probation service to protect us but something's going wrong. For several months Panorama will be going under cover in two bail hostels in Bristol, we chose them for a reason.

PAUL KENYON: Last year both hostels had offenders in their care, men who are supposed to be supervised and monitored who went out and killed members of the public. The man going in for us is journalist Luke Mendham. He has no previous experience with offenders but will be straight on the frontline. The hostel where he will start work is mainly for offenders involved in drug-related crime.

Secret filming

WARDEN: Who are you?

LUKE: Luke Mendham, I'm doing a shift here tonight.

WARDEN: Oh sorry. (laugh)

KENYON: This is Ashleigh House. For many offenders here, drugs have led to prolific theft and violence.

WARDEN: Hi yah mate. Sorry about that.

LUKE: That's alright, no problem at all.

WARDEN: I didn't recognise you.

KENYON: He's introduced to the other staff, the people responsible for monitoring offenders in their care. They try to ensure residents don't break their conditions. If they do, that they can be straight back to the courts or to prison.

WARDEN: You're living in their world now, not the world outside. This is a whole new world.

LUKE: Mmm.

WARDEN: Yeah, because you're dealing with people that are damaged from drugs, their lives are chaos.

KENYON: Each resident has different conditions to stick to, they're to help early signs of re-offending and to protect the public. The bare minimum of these, the offender must live in the hostel, and abide by night curfew. Luke is now part of the monitoring system.

(Night time: screams and shouts from a room)

LUKE: (knocks on door)

RESIDENT: Who is it?

LUKE: Guys it's Luke. What's going on?

RESIDENT: Who's this?

LUKE: It's Luke.

RESIDENT: Who's this?

LUKE: What's all the shouting, man?

RESIDENT: It's me. I'm pissed off, that's why, I'm pissed off.

LUKE: Christ, I thought you were having a fight in here.

RESIDENT: No, no, I'm not having a fight, I'm pissed off.

KENYON: Luke's role is partly to assist the residents, but also to supervise them, to check they stick to their conditions.

RESIDENT 2: It's you f***ing people. I know it's you people gone down there and told her.

KENYON: He'll carry out drug tests, deal with aggressive behaviour and log it.

RESIDENT 3: He's pushing his luck. I'm telling you, I'm going to rip his f***ing head off.

KENYON: He will, of course, also secretly film for us and we'll regularly debrief him on what he finds. On his first night at Ashleigh House a briefing with a surprise. Drugs were at the root of most residents' offences so you might expect the hostel to be drug free.

WARDEN: Believe me, a lot of them will be using all night. They're not allowed to use in the hostel, but a lot of them sneak the stuff in and they will use it. We know, we try to catch them. That's our job, it's a game, yeah. So they're using all night, smoking crack, smoking f***ing smack, whatever the hell their tipple is, so they're f***ing totally off their f***ing heads by the morning cos they're knackered because they've been up all night f***ing seeing pink fairies or whatever.

KENYON: Widespread hard drug use, and Ashleigh House staff know better than most how dangerous that can be. James Long was released into their care in November 2004. He'd done time for violence and drug related theft. Long was clean when he arrived at Ashleigh House. Eight weeks later he was testing positive for heroin. One evening he left the hostel to visit a friend round the corner, it was his cannabis dealer who had around a thousand pound's worth of the drug in his flat. Long wanted to borrow some money from him, there was an argument.

Home video

That man was Scott Marshall. He'd lost his wife to cancer and was now looking after their 3 year old son alone. Days after the argument, Scott Marshall failed to turn up for lunch at his mum's house. Worried, she came to the flat and found his son, Abie, distraught.

BETTY MARSHALL I picked Abie up who was shivering and cold and just had his little top on from his pyjamas and I thought well this is odd, half past four in the afternoon. So I said to Richard, I'm going to put Abie in a warm bath of water. I said while I put him in a warm bath of water, you run in and see what's... I said... perhaps.... he didn't call him Uncle, I said "Perhaps Scott's not very well. I said: "Why, what's the matter with him? I said: "If he's sick it's my place to go into him."

KENYON: In the front room she found chaos.

BETTY: Something had happened to the back of his head. He was hit with a clawhammer, so you can imagine what happened there. When I identified him, all I saw was this... just a bit of his face, nothing else, nothing else. You couldn't see his hands or anything.

KENYON: Three year old Abie had been sitting next to his father's dead body for days.

BETTY: That little boy witnessed everything. He witnessed his father dying, he lived with him for three days which is.... what evil person would do that? All he had to do, if he'd murdered him, all he had to turn round and say, get on the phone and say there's a child screaming in that house.

KENYON: After seeing his father killed, Abie didn't speak for three months.

James Long was in a hostel at the time that he committed this offence, wasn't he.

BETTY: Well he obviously was not monitored. They should monitor him because if he was monitored he wouldn't have been allowed to walk the street, and he was... I think he was full of cocaine and something else. He shouldn't have been out wondering around like that.

KENYON: James Long was sentenced to life. Staff at the hostel had known he was back on heroin and that he was volatile, but once outside the hostel they hadn't a clue about his behaviour.

Secret filming

HOSTEL WORKER: But he did do really well here. He got a job, he came from prison, he got a job, he'd never done that before. He did about 8 weeks clean and then he started dabbling and then he got a habit, but he was still working, he was maintaining, he was engaged, he was doing all sorts of stuff. But he just has a really bad temper, and it was over drugs and money.

KENYON: After that you might expect Ashleigh House to come down harder on drug use. This is one of its residents, Daniel Gill, a heroin and crack cocaine addict. For him, Ashleigh House was an alternative to prison. He's a prolific thief, stealing to fund his habit. Gill has more than a hundred offences to him name.

WARDEN: Daniel Gill, Daniel's been round the block so many f***ing times he don't need a map. He's using like it's going out of fashion. He gets JSA.

KENYON: What's JSA?

LUKE: It means 'Job Seeker's Allowance' but at the hostel they have their own twist on the term.

WARDEN: We've decided JSA is now Jamaican Smack..... Jamaican Smack Allowance.

LUKE: Oh, really. (laugh)

WARDEN: Yeah, I mean he's got no intention of giving up the gear. He's openly stated, if he won the lottery, he can afford his habit, till then he'll have to commit crimes to feed it.

LUKE: Is that right.

WARDEN: But he's very manipulative. He knows the system inside out. He will tie you in f***ing knots and he will try and get you jumping through f***ing needles.

KENYON: Whilst here Gill is receiving treatment to help him kick his habit, that's why he's at Ashleigh House and not in gaol. It's called a drug treatment order, his includes tranquilisers. But this is Gill first thing in the morning, before he's even given his daily medication. He appears to be off his head - that's because he is.

GILL: Yeah, I did take me apple.

LUKE: That's something, anyway. One in the morning, two at night, yeah?

KENYON: Luke has no training in medication, or how to deal with drug addicts.

LUKE: (at debriefing) I soon found it was quite easy to spot when people are taking heroin. They'd often be slumped in a chair out of it, and they generally refer to it as gauging out.

KENYON: That's the slang, is it, 'gauging out'?

LUKE: That's right.

WARDEN: He uses on top as well. Yeah. He's always gouging out over breakfast time. He uses a lot. So because he uses a lot he has to earn a lot of money and he's a prolific offender.

KENYON: So the staff know that Gill is using heroin. Despite that he gets a huge daily dose of methadone, a heroin substitute to help him get clean. The problem is that Gill appears to be addicted to methadone and heroin - he doesn't waste a drop.

Our man Luke soon gets to know where the residents hide their needles and drug taking gear. Tonight he's been to a known stashing place, beneath the first floor shower. He doesn't take long to find what he's looking for.

LUKE: Quite a few of the residents have all their meds, right, and then they use on top.

HOSTEL WORKER: Yeah.

LUKE: And then they use in the hostel?

HOSTEL WORKER: Yeah.

LUKE: But why does no-one ever find any gear in anyone's room?

HOSTEL WORKER: Well, you'd find paraphernalia but you'd never find the gear, unless they were really stupid. They'd have it on them probably, more than likely.

LUKE: What, they'd have the gear on them? They'd carry it.

HOSTEL WORKER: Yeah.

LUKE: And can we search them?

HOSTEL WORKER: No.

LUKE: We're not allowed to search them? Why not?

HOSTEL WORKER: We haven't got the those rights.

LUKE: (at debriefing) The staff find it extraordinary that they can't search residents for drugs.

KENYON: What, even if you know that certain individuals are carrying drugs on them?

LUKE: Well apparently it infringes their human rights.

KENYON: Is that what they say?

LUKE: Yeah.

KENYON: Well what about if we suspected that they'd got a huge bag of pills or heroin or whatever in their pocket...?

HOSTEL WORKER: The only thing you could do then, you'd have to have a good cause to suspect and you'd phone the police and say.

KENYON: But you couldn't order them to empty their pockets.

HOSTEL WORKER: You could but it wouldn't actually be legal. It wouldn't stand up in court. We haven't got those rights.

KENYON: But they're talking about heroin, a class A drug. Possession is a criminal offence, and for these men it can lead to violent crime, but the staff seem helpless to stop it. There's another bail hostel in Bristol for offenders at the top end of the risk table, our man Luke had work here too. There are up to 28 residents at the Brigstock Road Hostel, mainly paedophiles, rapists and killers. Again, it's on an ordinary residential street.

Secret filming

LUKE: (knocks on door)

HOSTEL WARDEN: (through intercom) Hello?

LUKE: Hello, it's Luke here, first shadow shift.

HOSTEL WARDEN: Push the door, Luke.

KENYON: And as in all hostels, residents have conditions barring them from certain activities. It might be alcohol, travelling into certain areas, associating with children, anything that might pose a danger to the public. That's what the staff here, including Luke, are monitoring.

HOSTEL WARDEN: They have probably greater risks but probably they're not presenting those risks actually so much in the building.

LUKE: Right, okay.

HOSTEL WORKER: It's what they're doing outside.

FRANK PARKER: Hey, bonjure signore.

LUKE: How are you, alright?

KENYON: This is Frank Parker, on the face of it, one of the friendlier residents in the hostel. One afternoon he told Luke why he's here.

PARKER: I got charged with murder, I killed somebody I shouldn't have done. I don't like talking about it. This is another thing, I've got to go and talk about it, like.

KENYON: The person he killed was a ten year old girl, after sexually assaulting her in her own bed. He served 39 years in gaol. Frank Parker was released into the hostel with several conditions on his license to keep him away from children. He's still considered a risk and his recent behaviour suggests he should be.

(Debriefing in park)

KENYON: So what kind of predicament is Frank in at the moment?

LUKE: He's in trouble actually. He was working at a charity shop and he was caught taking pictures of young girls.

KENYON: I'm assuming there's a penalty for that in the hospital?

LUKE: Yeah, well he lost his job at the shop and he's forced to sign in hourly.

KENYON: Forced to sign in, but people will be thinking for something like that, he should be sent back to prison, shouldn't he?

LUKE: Well one of the staff told me that he was extremely close.

(Back in the hostel)

LUKE: When are you signing in, every couple of hours?

PARKER: Every hour.

LUKE: Every hour.

PARKER: I didn't used to at one time, I've just been a bit f***ing stupid.

LUKE: Have you, what's that?

PARKER: Taking someone up to my room I shouldn't have done.

LUKE: Oh, is that against the rules, is it?

PARKER: Yeah. You can have visits, but can't take them up to your room.

KENYON: Frank Parker is a sex offender. The person he took to his room was his stepson's 17 year old girlfriend.

PARKER: Asked her to do a semi for my stepson that's in prison, I said that would cheer him like, you know what I mean?

LUKE: Sorry, say that again

PARKER: A semi photo.

LUKE: A semi....?

PARKER: A semi nude, yeah, a semi... not a nude one.

LUKE: You had a semi-nude photo.

PARKER: No, I said I would take one of her like, to send for him.

LUKE: Oh right.

KENYON: Frank Parker did take the photo, so here's a paedophile with a teenage girl, posing semi-nude in his bedroom in the very hostel that's supposed to be supervising him.

PARKER: It was just carelessness on my part. I wont make that mistake again.

KENYON: Worrying signs but apparently not worrying enough for him to be recalled to gaol for breaching his license. If offenders know they can break the rules inside the hostel, what about outside? Who's monitoring them then?

LUKE: (to hostel worker) Is there no way of keeping an eye on them? Can the police not keep an eye on them?

HOSTEL WORKER: Do you know how many sex offenders there are in Bristol? Do you know how many life licenses there are in Bristol?

LUKE: I've no idea.

HOSTEL WORKER: Believe me, there is no way we can take a look at every one.

KENYON: To do that would mean putting residents under surveillance, and it's just not practical with the 2000 offenders in bail hostels - so Panorama did!

Staff at Brigstock Road know only too well the potential dangers of losing tack of a resident. Until last year they were monitoring and supervising David St Charles, a violent drug addict who'd served time for armed robbery and assault. He bought heroin and cocaine, missed his curfew and was out the next day looking for money.

And in the same area that morning was a taxi driver looking for a fare, and they ended up outside this pub here. The driver's name was Colin Winston (photo of Colin with little son and daughter) an amateur rugby player with a wife and two children. How could he know he'd be confronted by a man on early release carrying a knife. Charles tried to rob him. There was a fight. Charles stabbed the driver in the neck and chest. He took money and a mobile phone. It was just 7 weeks after he'd been released from prison into the care of Brigstock Road hostel and Charles had killed a man. Staff who dealt with him still talk of that day last year and the events leading up to it, and there's a shocking revelation. It seems there were warning signs which the system failed to respond to.

HOSTEL WORKER: That taxi driver should never have been killed.

LUKE: The what, sorry?

HOSTEL WORKER: That taxi driver should never have been killed.

LUKE: Why's that?

HOSTEL WORKER: We provided his probation officer with enough evidence to recall him and they didn't recall him.

(at debriefing)

KENYON: Now this hasn't come out before, has it.

LUKE: No, this is very serious. The Probation Service were apparently given evidence from the hostel stating that this man had committed violent crimes again.

KENYON: So at that point he should be recalled, he should be sent back to prison, shouldn't he?

LUKE: He should. There are certainly questions that need to be asked.

(back in the hostel)

LUKE: You told the Probation Officer that you thought he was going to....

HOSTEL WORKER: No, no, there was evidence about what he'd been up to, that he'd been robbing and threatening and there'd been rumours that he'd allegedly robbed other taxi drivers.

LUKE: Really?

HOSTEL WORKER: Yeah. I've seen people get sent back for a lot less.

KENYON: So the hostel had reported David St Charles for allegedly robbing and threatening, enough, you might hope, to get him recalled to prison, but he wasn't and went on to murder Colin Winston. The hostel supposed to be monitoring him is run by Avon and Somerset Probation. We told its chief officer what we'd found.

JEANETTE WHITFORD Chief Officer, Avon & Somerset Probation Well, the information that was shared, I think probably what happened was that the... with hindsight, the robustness of the excuses that were being given was not challenged strongly enough, and if we'd have challenged that, maybe.... maybe we would have received other information which might have reviewed the decision that was made and how he was being dealt with. But the timescale....

KENYON: He should have been recalled to prison, shouldn't he.

WHITFORD: The timescale was very, very shot indeed, and I don't think anyone, actually, could have predicted that his level of offending was going to escalate into that terrible offence.

KENYON: In the same hostel our man Luke is meeting one of its most dangerous residents.

Secret filming

Kevin Rogers is a high risk predatory paedophile. He's been convicted of sexually abusing five children and has admitted to abusing others. He was sentenced to four years in gaol but released early, again with strict conditions designed to protect children.

HOSTEL WORKER: If he's gonna do something, he's gonna do something. Makes no difference if there's 10 or 20 of you here. If he's gonna do it, he'll do it.

KENYON: Rogers has been assessed as a high risk to children and is supposed to be under an increased level of supervision. Here he is in a Bristol shopping centre. Kevin Rogers' previous offences involve approaching young children around public toilets and then abusing them. This is where he was standing for considerable periods of time. (on camera) Just in front of him - the public toilets! He retuned a couple of times during the day. Rogers once told police that on a scale of one to ten his risk of offending was up to eight. He had fantasies about having sex with very young children, and whilst in the hostel baby clothes have been found in his room. He's so dangerous that there's a special system to protect us from him, and other high risk offenders. It's called MAPPA - Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangement. It brings agencies like police and probation together to manage high risk offenders and protect us. Rogers has been convicted of taking indecent photos of children, even possessing a camera could be a sign of re-offending. Look around his neck. (camera hanging) Now watch as he moves away, and without lifting the camera to his eye - snaps away.

HOSTEL WORKER: But the certainty is, they shouldn't just be bloody wandering about. And they could really f*** up a young kid, couldn't they?

LUKE: Well I think so, yes.

HOSTEL WORKER: You know, I mean that's the danger.

KENYON: MAPPA is relatively new. It claims to monitor nearly 50,000 offenders, some in bail hostels, others in the community. The government has described it as a 'world leader in the field'. Paedophile child killer Frank Parker is on MAPPA as well. Our surveillance team is watching him and what they find is disturbing. There he is in the doorway with some new friends, mothers and young girls. Remember, he's considered a risk to children, but here he is later, alone with a girl who appears to be in her early teens! It could be any street in any city. Frank is not going to tell people his background, and he knows the authorities aren't monitoring him when he's away from the hostel. At night it's one of Luke's jobs to make sure each resident is safely indoors. Frank's a picture of innocence.

LUKE: Oh, you're in then.

PARKER: Mmm hm.

LUKE: Yeah? How you been?

PARKER: Alright.

LUKE: Been up to much? Been out and about?

PARKER: No, just getting to know Bristol.

LUKE: Yeah?

PARKER: Yeah.

LUKE: Nice city, isn't it.

PARKER: Yeah, cos I was on an hour sign in, then I got it down to two-hour sign in, then I got it down signing in three times a day now. So I'll remember not to f*** up next time.

LUKE: Goodnight.

KENYON: Hostel staff must think he's been on his best behaviour. They're relaxing his supervision. Little do they know. We decide we have to put the police in the picture.

POLICE: Good morning, Avon and Somerset Police. How can I help?

LUKE: I think something is going on in a couple of flats. A man called Frank Parker, he's a sex offender, and there are always a lot of kids round him.

KENYON: We assumed the police would contact the hostel. In the meantime, in the absence of anyone else monitoring Frank Parker, we did. In 2004 to 5 the number of murders, rapes and other serious offences committed by people under the supervision of probation was 224.

Bail hostels are supposed to be part of an early warning system but offenders are brazenly breaching their conditions with apparently little or not comeback, and ultimately it seems that serious crimes are being committed which could be avoided.

One of them involved this man, Ken Milroy. He knew the weakness in the system and ruthlessly exploited it. He was a murderer released with conditions into the care of a bail hostel in York. As a murderer there were strict conditions on his movements to minimise the potential for him re-offending, and one of those was a curfew to make sure that he was back in the hostel at a certain time, and another one was restrictions on where he could travel, and if he broke either of those, and this is the important bit, if he was caught he can be sent straight back to prison.

Milroy was specifically barred from entering Gateshead, 85 miles away, where a number of people wanted protection from him. But how can such a condition really be enforced. Milroy drove to Gateshead and struck up a relationship with an old flame.

Did he tell you he wasn't allowed into this area?

LYNNE BELL He did afterwards, after... when he wanted us back again, he did say that he shouldn't have been up here, and he did say well if we ever had a row or anything like that they may find out that I've been up there, I'll go straight back.

KENYON: Into prison?

LYNNE: Yeah.

KENYON: Then there was his curfew. In a system so open to abuse, at least this is a condition that can be checked.

How long was he coming up here for? Was he ever spending the night?

LYNNE: One night he did. Three weeks... he was coming up three weekends.

KENYON: The reason he was in prison in the first place was because of what he did to the woman getting married in this photo, a nurse called Kate Garnett. The groom - neatly cut out of the picture is Milroy himself. Kate's mother has repeatedly warned the authorities how dangerous he was.

DELIA GARNETT I used to say to 'em: "He'll do it again. He will get out and he will kill again."

Home video

KENYON: Here's Kate and Milroy on their last holiday together in Turkey. Kate knew her husband had convictions for violence against women, but thought he'd changed.

DELIA: There he is, Mr Universe.

KENYON: A few months later the couple were back home in Gateshead. A New Year's drink turned into a violent row. He viciously attacked her. She ran into a local taxi office to take cover.

KATE's MOTHER: And he went behind her, lifted her out of the taxi office, and they went... must have walked around the back to hear, and that's where she was found. (emotional)

KENYON: And the first you knew about it...

KATE'S MOTHER: (emotional)

KENYON: Don't worry, you don't have to tell us if you don't want to.

KATE'S MOTHER: The first we knew is when the police came at 1 o'clock in the morning and knocked us up and said that she'd been... and he killed her.

KENYON: Milroy was convicted of murdering Kate. That's what led to his life sentence. But just 9 years later he was out and living in that bail hostel in York. As we know, he'd breached his conditions, travelling to Gateshead to see a girlfriend, and even staying overnight. Here was a violent killer, freed into the care of a bail hostel able to breach his conditions whenever he felt like it, and Lynne was about to ditch him.

LYNNE: I used the callous way out and I sent a text. I didn't want to speak to him, I just sent a text.

KENYON: And what did you put on the text?

LYNNE: I put on something like: "I'm sorry Ken, I just... I can't do it." I didn't put any reasons why, I just said: "I can't do it, I don't feel the same as I did." He sent a message back. It was: "Well I have the memories" at first. And then the next message was: "I never want to see you again as long as I live." Then on the Sunday I was sunbathing in the garden, but lying on my front because my back was hurting at the time, and I dozed off. Then the next thing I just felt a weight on my back, and then the hot... (emotional) The pain was absolutely horrendous, I knew it was a knife... I knew it was a knife going in my back, and it just kept on coming, and coming, and coming. And after about the ninth time, I don't know how I did it but I pushed myself over to lying on my back, and that was when I felt my lungs pop, so I knew I was gasping for air, I couldn't breathe.

KENYON: Milroy gave himself up to the police. Lynne is still struggling to recover. The inquiry into what went wrong has never been made public, not even to relatives. In 7 years time Milroy can apply to be released. Perhaps he'll be put into a bail hostel again. By now you may be thinking bail hostels are ill equipped for the type of offenders they're dealing with, let alone to enforce conditions of release. Amman Luke was about to find out just how ill-equipped. At Ashley House the hostel specialising in drug rehabilitation, a new offender has just arrived.

HOSTEL WORKER We've got a new guy arrived tonight, he's in the quiet room - Tony Yusuf.

LUKE: He's already here today?

HOSTEL WORKER Yes, he's only arrived today. He's not happy and he's a bit dodgy actually. He tried to intimidate us and all of that sort of thing.

LUKE: What's his problem?

HOSTEL WORKER He relapsed after 9 months basically and he's f***ed off with himself, the world and he's got a lot of anger problems towards women, and stabs women! So, of course, he's presented with two women. So he ah....

LUKE: Is that what he was done for?

HOSTEL WORKER: On several occasions. He shouldn't really be here.

KENYON: But if not here - where? It was the courts which sent Anthony Yusuf on a Drug Treatment Order instead of prison, presumably in the belief that he'd be monitored and supervised.

YUSUF: Alright, cheers.

LUKE: And there's the morning meeting at 9, that's compulsory. Breakfast is up to you.

YUSUF: What do you mean, morning meeting at 9?

KENYON: The hostel was originally designed for lower risk offenders, but this one, just like the other 103 in the UK, is increasingly having to deal with high risk criminals.

YUSUF: (tone aggressive and threatening) Because I'm getting pissed off, going to talk to f***ing this person, that person, like I'm some f***ing retard, mate.

LUKE: It's just to help with your um....

YUSUF: Help me with what mate, help me with what? I've just done six months f***ing treatment mate.

LUKE: It's just...

YUSUF: It's you f***ing people, I know it's you people who've run down there and told her.

LUKE: Mate....

YUSUF: It's pissing me off, mate. You're not talking to a retard.

LUKE: I didn't say you are... I don't think that......

YUSUF: You people are saying I'm a retard.

LUKE: Mate....

YUSUF: (slamming and banging about aggressively) All these f***ing people, f***ing....

KENYON: Yusuf's violent attacks against women and his burglaries are believed to be drug linked. He's about to go through the hostel's drug test.

LUKE: So this is Tony, yeah. Now why are we doing this?

HOSTEL WORKER: (urine sample) We need to test it twice a week.

LUKE: And these tests will tell us what?

HOSTEL WORKER: One is cocaine and one is opiates. Opiates is heroin, COC iscocaine/crack.

KENYON: Almost all the residents are regularly tested. That had only seemed to make sense if failing the test was seen as a problem. Yusuf's results are in.

LUKE: What we got?

HOSTEL WORKER: Right, I reckon that's positive on the opiates, negative on the cocaine. Now the cocaine is touch and go, isn't it.

(at debrief)

KENYON: If he's supposed to be being weaned off... the point is, there's got to be a disincentive, hasn't there. If there's no penalty for taking it, they wont stop.

LUKE: I don't believe there really is a disincentive. As long as they can keep themselves fairly steady, they can take drugs, give positive tests.

KENYON: Ashleigh House says the idea of punishing a positive test is outdated, but they're trying to reduce gradually residents' drug use. Luke wanted to know from a more experienced hostel worker just how prevalent drug taking is among residents.

LUKE: Out of the 17 or 18 people here, how many people will get clear ones?

HOSTEL WORKER: You and me.

LUKE: Really! (laugh)

KENYON: A drug habit like Daniel Gills' can cost him around £50 a day.

LUKE: Most of the guys who stay here have drug problems, do they?

HOSTEL WORKER: Drugs, drink, yeah.

LUKE: How do they fund their habits?

HOSTEL WORKER: Crime.

LUKE: So... right. And is there much you can do about that?

HOSTEL WORKER: No.

KENYON: Well there are sanctions if they're caught. Daniel Gill could be recalled to court, but in Luke's experience most of the drug taking here seems to go unpunished.

JEANETTE WHITFORD Chief Officer, Avon & Somerset Probation : Home Office guidance tells us that we should not be recalling people if they are testing positive, unless they are clearly not cooperating and that presents a picture of risk. I can tell you that over the last six months 25 offenders have been recalled from Ashleigh House alone. Now I think that demonstrates that when things are not going as they should do, that offenders know, and they know this from the very beginning, that they will be called to prison, action will be taken.

KENYON: Some are recalled to prison, or to the courts, but plenty more are not.

HOSTEL WORKER: He's so dishonest. He's just so dishonest. He's almost predictably dishonest. Little things. He might put his medication in his mouth and then take it out.

KENYON: Watch closely. Gill pretends to take the medication, but doesn't really, he doesn't swallow. He even gives a little acknowledgement to one of his mates. (turns, looks, raises eyebrows and smiles) Here he is on the street where he can sell his tablets for a couple of pounds each, but he needs more than that for a fix of heroin. There's Gill again, this time with glasses and a baseball cap, out shoplifting. Remember he's at Ashleigh House to try to get him off drugs and stop him committing crime. Watch him as he takes a product off the display, folds it up, conceals it in his hand, and there it goes, into his pocket. Later he went to this second-hand shop.

HOSTEL WORKER: There are times that this place is a mini crime wave for the area, because they are going down town shoplifting. We've got residents here breaking into shops, breaking into houses because they want to feed their habit, and they're here - they're just taking the piss. Here's an easy option.

KENYON: In terms of when residents go out into town, they might go and steal things to pay for their habit. How many of those thefts, crimes, whatever, how many do you think actually get detected?

HOSTEL WORKER: Very few.

KENYON: Really?

(Debriefing) LUKE: It's two days since we called the police about paedophile and child-killer Frank Parker hanging around with children. We expected them to inform the probation service and the staff in the hostel.

KENYON: So you've just been in for your first shift since making that phone call to the police and what's going on in the hostel?

LUKE: I don't think anything appears to be going on. There was nothing in the log, no one was talking about it. In fact I don't think the hostel even knew about it.

KENYON: But back at the flats, Frank Parker was still with children. Remember, he's meant to come under MAPPA, Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements, the world leader in its field. By now Frank is on first name terms with the children. (on camera) He returns to the hostel to sign in. As far as they're concerned, he's sticking to the rules. But later (on camera) he's back with the children again.

HOSTEL WORKER: We can only keep an eye on them until they walk to the end of that path. Once they turn left or right, we ain't got a clue what they're doing.

KENYON: That's exactly what we're discovering. (on camera - interaction between child & Frank on isolated block balcony) Where's the system's careful supervision of Frank Parker? Just as we were about to call the police again, Parker stopped going to the flats. We assumed the police had finally taken some kind of action.

We've seen a paedophile killer, who is in the care of your probation area, out during the day, mixing with children. Where's the supervision in that?

JEANETTE WHITFORD Chief Officer, Avon & Somerset Probation Well at that moment I guess the supervision was by your reporters and I would have expected that if you were seeing things happening that were, in your view, inappropriate, then I would very much have liked to have had that information that we could give that...

KENYON: Well we informed the police, as you know. But if we hadn't have been there, who was watching these people during the day, that's the point.

WHITFORD: You didn't.... No, the information was not passed to the probation staff. I don't know whether you passed it to other people but it wasn't passed to the probation staff.

KENYON: There it is, the system not working in front of our very eyes. The police didn't pass the information on to the probation service, they say he wasn't considered high risk. There's no evidence he molested a child - but what if he had? There's something else we haven't told you about Brigstock Road, a hostel increasingly being used to house dangerous paedophiles.

Now obviously bail hostels have to be located somewhere, it's never going to be ideal. And anyway, we're told that the residents are monitored, but where's the wisdom in using this hostel here to house dangerous paedophiles when just across there is a nursery, and just behind the Salvation Army building here is another nursery, and just behind the hostel itself is yet another one which is actually overlooked by it.

There's a violent paedophile at the hostel who is a friend of Frank's. For legal reasons we'll just call him Michael. He's considered high risk, another offender who's been chosen for special monitoring. He was released early from prison after raping a very young girl and admitting abusing a boy. Now he finds himself here at Brigstock Road. The wisdom of allowing Frank Parker and Michael to socialise together is questionable, but here they are, out for a stroll. In Michael's risk assessment it says there's evidence he drinks excessively, and as a result can become violent. You'd think an obvious precaution would be to keep him out of the pub, but here he is, again and again. Staff know that drink could trigger his re-offending but don't challenge him, even when he returns clearly drunk.

MICHAEL: (very slurred speech) Shall I do this breathalyser then?

HOSTEL WORKER: You've already done one tonight, haven't you?

MICHAEL: Yeah, but I've got to do one when I come in.

KENYON: This is hardly the intensive risk management the government promises, and privately the staff know it.

HOSTEL WORKER: It just should be tighter to my mind, because once they've come out, there's nothing in place, they just let them do their own thing and wait for something to happen, really.

LUKE: Yeah, sure.

HOSTEL WORKER: I reckon it should be the other way around.

KENYON: When there have been systemic failures in the past, the details have normally been kept secret. But whilst Luke was undercover, a government inquiry into one case was published, and its findings were exclusive. It concerned this man, Anthony Rice, a violent rapist with a history of horrific assault, some against children! The inquiry found that his human rights had been placed above those of the public. For 15 years Rice was shifted around the prison system, while serving a life sentence. But it's emerged part of his criminal record had been lost. It gave the authorities a false impression of what kind of risk he really was. Rice was mistakenly released into a hostel out in the Hampshire countryside - but another mistake, it was the wrong sort of hostel, more suited to low risk offenders looking for spiritual guidance.

The probation service thought the hostel had more security than it really had. The hostel thought that Rice was a less dangerous offender than he really was. We now know just how unenforceable conditions of release can be, but we'll take you through Rice's anyway. At first he wasn't allowed to leave the village, or to drink, or to approach loan females. But Rice travelled to Southampton and attacked a woman with a brick to the head. No one found out. He must have thought he could get away with murder. On another trip he met a woman he liked. Her former partner took us to the spot.

MICHAEL McGOVERN: This is the bench where Naomi bumped into Anthony Rice. I was told he was sat on the bench and he saw Naomi walked past and they had done that the week before and he invited Naomi to have a drink.

KENYON: Naomi Bryant was a 40 year old mum, and here she was, a lone female, drinking with Anthony Rice. The inquiry found he'd even nipped out of the pub for an appointment with his probation officer and returned to carry on drinking.

McGOVERN: They went back to Naomi's local pub, closer to home, and had a couple more drinks there.

KENYON: And by the time they got here, they'd already been to several other pubs around Winchester, hadn't they. But this was the last one, the March Hare.

McGOVERN: This was the very last one here.

KENYON: And what happened, you came here that evening?

McGOVERN: I came here....

KENYON: You came through the door...

McGOVERN: I came through the door with my daughter, and just as I was turning around to leave I saw two drops of blood on the staircase. So Hannah said to me: "Daddy, there's blood everywhere." And I rushed upstairs and Hannah said: "Open the bathroom door." So I opened the bathroom door.... Hannah asked me to enter her mother's bedroom, and I could see there was an awful lot of blood and a lot of mess, but I couldn't see Naomi. And then Hannah said to me: "Check the other side of the bed." So I had to crawl over the bed and I found Naomi's half naked body sort of stuffed under the bed brutally stabbed and strangled!

KENYON: The murder of Naomi Bryant was avoidable officially. The inquiry blamed mistakes, misjudgements and miscommunication. Her mother is now planning to sue the Home Office for the failures she believes cost her daughter her life.

VERNA BRYANT I was angry, angry that he wasn't monitored more. The fact too that he met Naomi and he was on the curfew, and he left the pub and went and had a word with his probation officer, or signed on with his probation... and then he went back again, back to Naomi, so he wasn't monitored at all really, so... and the fact he was out all night. When he went back to his hostel after the event he got changed, he went down to Southampton, then got the train to London, and nobody knew he was gone all night.

KENYON: A man like Rice should have been a priority for a system designed to keep her safe. Yes, there was an inquiry, some press interest and now a possible legal challenge. But as we were continually finding in Bristol, the flawed system which allowed it to happen remains largely unchanged.

Secret filming

It's a lads night out for Brigstock Road residents, a group of them have been to the pub. Some of these are high risk sex offenders and others are violent criminals. Who's taking responsibility for them now? There's a balance to be struck between their human rights and ours. Their right to be free and our right to be protected from them. But the people around them will have no idea who they're mixing with. Only a few days before, one of these men had made an alarming admission.

LUKE: He said he wanted to kill somebody?

HOSTEL WORKER: Yeah. Stab someone, he said.

LUKE: He wants to stab someone?

HOSTEL WORKER: Mmm

LUKE: And have the Probation been informed?

HOSTEL WORKER: Oh yeah, yeah, they've been informed. But he's a young lad.

LUKE: Police?

HOSTEL WORKER: I don't know. Probation has been informed and XXXX told probation, the probation office told us and we did a room search today - there's no weapons in his room because we searched everything and there was no drugs, but he's had his medication changed today, so that might be what's been causing the thoughts.

KENYON: Like several of the residents he has serious mental health problems. It's a big issue for the criminal justice system. Hostel staff aren't fully trained in this area, but there's nowhere more suitable for mental ill offenders once they're released from jail, it isn't the first time this offender has said he wants to kill someone.

HOSTEL WORKER: There's lots of people in the past have been here that shouldn't be. There's a lot of people they've failed by putting them in places like this, it's wrong. It's not fair on us, because of our safety. It's not fair on them because they're gonna fail, and it's not fair on other residents because they could get hurt by it.

(Debrief)

KENYON: This hostel where you're working, they're actually looking after some violent individuals with mental health problems, and as I keep saying, they don't know how to deal with it.

LUKE: No, the staff are doing the best they can, and some of the staff are very experienced and have a good idea of what to do, but for less trained staff, how do you deal with a violent offender who has huge mood swings, has mental health problems, it's a minefield.

HOSTEL WORKER: I understand they've gotta put 'em somewhere but it's all down to funding. Money comes first over everything, and they're not interested in.... you know, I'm sure if they had proper places that were more governed to deal with people with mental health, then I think.. you know, less failures and therefore in the long run you'd spend less money.

KENYON: It'll no doubt be a surprise that a high risk offender like him with a desire to kill could be living in your street, and that the people supposed to be protecting us have little confidence that they really can.

Secret filming

Daniel Gill, the drug addict with 100 offences to his name needs drugs money again. We know now the image of a tight disciplined system, constantly minimising the risk to us doesn't match the reality, and offenders like Gill know it too.

HOSTEL WORKER: A seasoned criminal, he's actually with the prolifics. So he's cast as a 'prolific' offender. You've got 'persistent' then 'prolific'. And it's all basically on account of your number of pre-cons.

LUKE: Oh right.

HOSTEL WORKER: His previous convictions would be like that! (indicates a stack high)

LUKE: For what sort of thing? Like burglary?

HOSTEL WORKER: Burglary, burglary, burglary, theft, deception, fraud, burglary, burglary, burglary, that kind of.. you know, constant acquisition for drugs, acquisitive crime. But yeah, maybe the odd robbery if he'd done enough crack, or just.. you know, was in a particularly bad mood or drunk, you know, aggravating features.

KENYON: Since we saw him shoplifting Daniel appears to have found another way to raise money, through a female resident at the hostel - offenders brought together by the system. She's not shy of attracting attention, that's because Michelle is touting for trade, she's a working girl, and now she's working with Daniel: two offenders who the courts believe are being monitored and supervised and their offending behaviour being dealt with. A car has pulled over. It looks like Michelle has a customer. Half an hour later Daniel is waiting. Michelle seems to have had some success. Daniel always seems to be out committing crime. The system can't have it both ways. Either it knows what he's up to but has failed to act, or it's failing to detect his offending behaviour in the first place. Michelle hands out money to Daniel and a friend. Now he can buy another fix.

(Debrief in park)

We've seen him selling drugs, we've seen him thieving, he looks now as though he's pimping as well. People will be saying.. you know, surely some action should be taken.

LUKE: Absolutely. Nobody within the system seems to be taking responsibility for what he is doing. He's committing crimes all the time and nobody is saying we've got to stop this guy.

KENYON: After 100 or so offences, Daniel Gill is on a drug treatment order or DTTO. He seems to think it's a ticket to stay out of prison.

LUKE: What about sending him back to prison?

HOSTEL WORKER: Danny's on an order, he's not on license.

LUKE: Well what about just sending him to prison?

HOSTEL WORKER: (laugh) They'd have to breach his order and then recommend re-sentencing. And then sometimes you go back to court and the judges throw it out and say: "Oh well, order revoked. You're free to go."

LUKE: But he's got more than a hundred offences to his name, hasn't he. How many does it take?

HOSTEL WORKER: Why is he on a DTTO? Why is he not in custody anyway?

KENYON: Remarkably we discovered that the paedophile child killer we've been filming had again been hanging around the children he befriended at the flats. (on camera) We thought the police had intervened, but as we now know, probation hadn't even been contacted. We also discovered that his behaviour had deteriorated further into taking pictures of the children. We called the police again.

I'm a bit concerned. I rang about a month ago about a guy called Frank Parker, he'd been spending a lot of time with children.

POLICE: Yes.

LUKE: He's certainly been back there recently, and on Friday he was there with a dog and was taking pictures of some children with the dog.

POLICE: Don't be concerned. We will have taken notice of your previous call and I am currently logging this call.

KENYON: Luke stopped working at the hostel three weeks ago. It had become clear the language used by politicians: "close monitoring," "intense supervision" is often just wishful thinking. A system not normally exposed to the public is in denial.

A number of people in your care are not supervised in any real sense at all during the day, are they?

WHITFORD: They're not followed around. They are supervised in a.....

KENYON: But why aren't they supervised during the day?

JEANETTE WHITFORD Chief Officer, Avon & Somerset Probation Supervision does not mean they are supervised for 24 hours a day.

KENYON: But what does it mean happens to them during the day in terms of supervision?

WHITFORD: Supervision does not mean that they are supervised 24 hours a day. Supervision means that they will be expected to do the work that is planned for them, to attend for their appointments and work with partner agencies in drugs...drugs and alcohol provision, to attend programmes that the probation staff run, that's what supervision means.

Secret filming

YUSUF: I'm getting pissed off with having to talk to f***ing tis person and that person, like I'm some f***ing retard, mate.

KENYON: Tony Yusuf, the offender who stabbed women, you saw him test positive for heroin. Shortly after, he was caught shoplifting but was freed by the court and sent back to the hostel. He's now deemed to have completed his order and is living somewhere in London.

Kevin Rogers, a high risk predatory paedophile, released early on license. He moved out of Brigstock Road and into a flat, apparently free to spend his days coming and going as he pleased. But in mid July an off duty policeman caught him hanging around children at a swimming pool. He was recalled to prison.

Daniel the heroin addict with more than 100 offences, was kicked out of the hostel. Not for using heroin and crack, or stealing, or pimping, but because he didn't pay his rent. Since then he's been arrested for theft and is now in custody again.

We contacted Brigstock Road about the paedophile called Michael and told them about his heavy drinking, a known trigger for his offending. He's now been recalled to prison.

We didn't see Frank Parker with the children at the flats again, but when we saw him at another house with children and thought we heard screaming, we rang the police, this time saying we were Panorama. There was an immediate response. Other adults were in the house and no harm was done. Since then he too has been recalled to prison - not because of his behaviour, we're told, but because this programme might make him abscond. Avon and Somerset Police told us an intelligence log was made following our earlier phone calls and he wasn't assessed as high risk.

The Home Secretary, John Reid, declined our request for an interview but yesterday he announced a major overhaul of the probation service, and an investigation into our findings, admitting that some dangerous offenders have not been supervised properly.

And what of the mothers of those children befriended by Frank Parker, a child-killer and paedophile?

MUM 1: From the minute I saw him, I just thought he was vile, absolutely vile that this man is allowed to walk around so freely and obviously with our children being at risk.

MUM 2: Knowing what he is capable of doing, just.. you know, shivers down my spine, hairs stand up on end, just.. you know, shaking, just so in shock that my children were with him, next to him, a parent's worst nightmare.

MUM 1: You want to protect your children and you want to make sure that they're safe, and one of the things, especially living in this day and age, is to make sure that nothing that horrific would happen to them, and it just doesn't feel that they're being protected enough. The anger... the anger is unbelievable.

KENYON: On Sunday, The Nuclear Walmart, the network of rogue scientists and businessmen who sold nuclear secrets to Iran and North Korea. We're also investigating 'no-go' Britain. If you feel threatened or intimidated where you live, go to bbc.co.uk/panorama and tell us why.

If you've been affected by any of the issues in tonight's programme and would like to talk to someone in confidence, please call the BBC Action Line on 08000 934 934. All calls are free and confidential.