PRESSURE is mounting on Prison Service bosses to rethink the decision to shut down The Verne's pioneering Kainos wing.

South Dorset MP Jim Knight has already met with prison ministers to discuss the issue and West Dorset-based Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin visited the jail yesterday to talk with the jail's governor Mike Cook and other staff who run the Christian wing.

The community (formerly known as Kairos) is a charitable trust which runs specialised rehabilitation programmes based on Christian principles.

Inmates volunteer to join the community and agree to abide by strict codes of behaviour. The success of the project at The Verne sparked the setting up of communities at other prisons across the country.

But when the charity's funding came to an end recently the future of the Christian project looked doomed. Prison chiefs told governors at prisons running Kainos schemes that it would be "inappropriate to provide public money to support this or other religiously-based projects'.

The communities were also accused of failing to deliver in making an impact on reconviction rates.

Mr Cook said: "Despite all of that, we regard it as an unfortunate decision for The Verne. D Wing has some of the poorest conditions I've come across in my 20 years' experience.

"Our argument is that Kainos made a great deal of difference in transforming the situation within the prison for inmates and staff."

Principal prison officer on the wing Geoff Hebbern said in a letter to a national newspaper this week: 'The conditions prior to Kainos were horrendous, with 72 men living in totally unsuitable dormitories that were seriously sub-standard and impossible to police'.

Currently the Prison Service has agreed to fund the project until next August and has said that if the charity can come up with new funding for Kainos it would allow the community wing to continue after August.

Mr Knight said: "I have a lot of admiration for the way The Verne has been run in the difficult circumstances.

"I am due to have a more formal meeting with the prisons minister in a fortnight and if I have the opportunity to raise this in the House of Commons before that, then I will."

Before his meeting at The Verne yesterday, Mr Letwin said: "I arranged the meeting because I am worried about the decision to stop the work carried out on D Wing.

"I want to see what is going on at the prison first hand. That is why I asked the governor for this meeting. Once I find out for myself how The Verne authorities view this issue I may be taking it up with the Home Office."