PAEDOPHILES and former Ashworth prisoners are not going to land on our doorstep with the opening of a residential centre for emotionally disturbed people!

That's the pledge from the director of the controversial new venture at Crewe's former orphanage, Webb House.

The first 15 residents are due to arrive in mid-September.

With the news of the opening has come renewed fears for public safety.

Leading critic Barrie Durkin claims that information booklets for staff and referrers reveal some disturbing issues.

He is calling for a public enquiry and the closure of the centre until its conclusions are announced.

"The literature clearly exposes the whole venture as a scandal of monumental proportions, which, if not curtailed, may well have a profound impact on the residents of our borough" he said.

He claims that the borough authority may have been deceived over the kind of people seeking help.

The council waved through plans by the Mental Services of Salford for a psycho-educational service for people who had experienced faulty interpersonal relationships during their formative years. A Certificate of Lawfulness was granted and the need for planning permission ruled out because it was felt there would technically be no change of use for the former orphanage.

"However it has now emerged that many of the patients will be people with enduring and complex severe personality disorders, difficult to place, untreatable and that their difficulties may be expressed through deliberate self harm and a range of impulsive and criminal acts", said Mr Durkin.

"Treatment is entirely voluntary and cannot be made a condition of any court order. However patients can be on probation orders or on a supervision register, suspended sentences or parole from prison". This is, by any stretch of the imagination, a far cry from the proposal used to obtain a certificate of lawfulness," he added.

His main fears centre on the lack of security.

"The Salford Service is still maintaining that it cannot and will not guarantee the safety of the borough residents because of their patients' profile and forensic history, coupled with the fact that they will be operating an open house policy with the residents able to come and go at will," he said.

"It may be admirable to ensure such patients receive the best possible treatment. But not at the expense of other people's safety and well being.

"The failure to ensure that safety raises questions of such a magnitude that an immediate public enquiry is essential. The new institution should stay closed until the conclusion of such an enquiry has taken place," he added.

Webb House Director, Dr Keith Hyde, admits he cannot promise the centre will be trouble free.

"What we are establishing is a self help community with people joining it for up to a year. We have some basic regulations but most of the rules will be made and developed by the residents themselves who can come and go freely. If anyone does break the rules they will be discharged and there will be real pressure on people to conform," he said.

"There is no way severely disturbed people like those in prisons like Ashworth will come . Nor will convicted paedophiles. They don't meet the criteria as they are not in a free situation. They have to remain at a permanent address," he added.

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