A controversial bail hostel that housed serial sex attacker Paul Robson was being defended today by a former criminal who claims his life changed after a stay there, writes Mark Templeton.

George Stratford, 59, said his life of crime ended after just a few months at the Abingdon Road hostel, Oxford.

He was speaking out a week after sex attacker Robson was jailed for life for carrying out a vile assault on a woman in her own home after walking out of the hostel where he stayed while on licence from prison. Mr Stratford has rejected residents' calls to close the building and said if the hostel turned him around after a life of crime, it could do it for anyone.

He said: "It stopped me offending after an entire lifetime and it's put a lot of young people back on the tracks.

"At that hostel I was given one-to-one treatment and care something I never had at any of the prisons I've been in.

"I talked about my experiences every day and I gradually started thinking 'there must be more to life than this'.

I walked out of that door and said I wouldn't do another job and haven't. That's why you can't close it down.

Last week, the police and the probation service admitted making mistakes in the Robson case, but said their multi-agency approach has resulted in other potentially dangerous offenders being reintegrated into the community, both locally and nationally.