A city centre bookshop is offering a safe haven for foreign students staying in Oxford.

Borders Bookshop in Magdalen Street will act as a waiting room for students who feel they have been the victim of a crime, or are threatened in any way, while staff contact the police or their college.

Organisers hope the Oxford Safe Haven Scheme will help heal the mistrust some foreign students have of police due to experiences of authority in their own country.

Det Sgt George Mynehan, of Thames Valley Police, said: "We have very young students studying in the city. There have been situations in the past where they have been identified as students by their back packs, targeted by thieves and attacked.

"Often they will come into Oxford with an unwillingness to contact the police if they have a problem, which is born out of a mistrust of the police in their own countries.

"What we were looking for was an outside agency or place which would allow them to make contact with the relevant person - be it police or a person at their language school."

The scheme is the brainchild of Language Forums, an organisation made up of Thames Valley Police, the Oxford Safety Community Partnership and the city's language schools and colleges.

Colleges will now hand out information packs to all students with details of the scheme and how Borders can help them if they need it.

Borders manager Antony Edwards said: "We have been trained to deal with different situations and believe this can be easily implemented.

"We offer the perfect place to come because of our late opening hours and because we obviously get a lot of students here buying books and in the coffee shop anyway."

Megan Rudman, a senior teacher at EF International said: "We have had students with a variety of problems, ranging from difficulties with their host families, to sadly, an incident where a student was robbed at knifepoint. Young students in particular are less confident about contacting the police.

"With this scheme they can come to Borders and those who are more confident can either go to the police or to the school."

Police community support officer Fiona Heaver added: "The city centre neighbourhood team come into contact with hundreds of language students every year.

"We are completely on board with the scheme and are looking forward to working closely with Borders."