A NATIONAL charity dedicated to helping foreign prisoners in UK jails has been established in Weymouth.

The British Eastern European Support group (BEES) will provide services to prisoners who can face great difficulties due to language problems.

Director General Svetlana Purkis said: "When a person is sentenced to six months in prison, the judge does not say six months in hell.

"Foreign prisoners face a great deal of problems caused by misunderstandings and a lack of knowledge of our laws. Our group aims to help them overcome them."

Svetlana said the group would provide a link between staff at the Home Office and the Prison Service and would also liase with consuls and embassies.

She added: "In theory these groups should be working together already, but this is not the case.

"The system is in a mess, papers are going missing, and prisoners who are supposed to be released early to go back to their own country are spending more time in prison than their original sentence.

"I have a case of a man who has nearly finished his sentence. He has sent the same document five times to tell the Home Office he wants to leave the country and yet he is still here.

"It costs £100 a day to look after prisoners who should not be here and we can send people to university for that money."

She added that a lack of knowledge meant foreign prisoners did not know how to retrieve their property at the end of their sentence and prisoners suffered on the inside because of a lack of facilities.

One of the charity's first projects will be to fund a new TV satellite dish to pick up Russian programmes on HMP Verne, which already receives Spanish language television.

The group currently looks after 23 prisoners across the country and will be holding a recruitment drive for volunteers across the country. It will provide training on laws regarding prisoners.

Svetlana added: "There are 150 Russian-speaking prisoners and 3,000 foreign nationals in prison so there's plenty to do. We need volunteers who speak Russian or any Eastern European language."

The group is looking for funding and a range of items from foreign language books to first class stamps. For more information contact Svetlana on 01305 750467.