Louise Casey visited Moss Lodge Community Centre, Parr, which has been transformed by community payback from a haulage yard into a recycling site for flowers collected from St Helens cemeteries.

The crime and justice adviser met members of the Probation Service - including regional chief executive officer John Stafford - and local councillor Teresa Sims to find out more about the year long project.

Vegetables and plants are now being grown at the Sexton Avenue centre with the intention of distributing them around the local community - with links to other payback schemes in which fruit and veg is sorted and packed for the elderly at a reduced cost.

It was also announced on the day that the next local project due to benefit from community payback will be a clean up project at Sankey Valley.

But Ms Casey was keen to point out that the community payback scheme, which forces offenders to wear bright orange jackets while working in the community, is not an easy way out for criminals.

She said: "Criminals face far tougher payback stints in a crackdown on
community sentences. They will be forced to work in rain, hail or snow.

"Ordinary people are sick to the back teeth of listening about the human rights of people who break the law. If you break the law you take the consequences - end of story."