The service had been temporarily suspended during the corona virus lockdown, amid concerns the scheme could not be adequately carried out within Public Health guidelines. There were a number of court hearings during the lockdown though, where defendants were sentenced to community service meaning a small backlog was growing by the time the service resumed earlier this month.

Now the service has resumed, it needs more places for people to be able to complete their sentences.

Pictured: Community service is one of the punishments which can be handed down by Guernsey's Magistrate's and Royal courts. 

Senior Probation Officer Kat Lockwood said community service can cover a number of different activities. 

“Community Service is intended to allow an offender to make reparations by undertaking unpaid work for the local community, primarily as a direct alternative to a custodial sentence. We offer charities and not-for-profit organisations clients who can undertake a variety of work placements to allow them to repay society for their offending.

“Because of Covid restrictions, the service was on hiatus for several weeks meaning we now have a build up of people needing to complete their sentence. We are ideally looking for individual placements, rather than groups. This will mean more people completing their sentence in a timely fashion. If we don’t think a placement idea is suitable, we will simply say no – so we want to encourage people to get in contact and see if their needs meet ours.”

Those sentenced to Community Service need to be able to complete a minimum of five hours work per week, and may work up to a maximum of 15 hours per week. 

Any charities or not-for-profit organisations who would like group work-party assistance will be given support, with the sessions supervised by a member of the Community Service team. Work parties can be suitable for work such as larger scale gardening projects.

For more information contact Aimee or Sharon on 01481 724337, or by email probation@gov.gg.