Stevenage MP Stephen McPartland saw for himself the good work done by offenders on Community Payback when he visited Hertfordshire Probation Trust.

After spending time with staff at the Stevenage office, finding out about life on the frontline, Stephen was taken to Stevenage Cricket Club to see a Community Payback project in action.

There he met offenders, supervised by probation staff, painting sight screens and tidying up the grounds.

It was just one of hundreds of Community Payback projects going on across the county, all aimed at both punishing and rehabilitating offenders by making them carry out good works for the benefit of the community.

More than 100,000 hours of Community Payback are carried out across the county each year by offenders ordered by the courts to do the unpaid work.

Stephen said afterwards: "I think Community Payback is an excellent idea. Victims can see that offenders are being punished, and organisations like the cricket club are able to carry out work that might otherwise not get done."

Stephen added: "I was also really impressed with what I heard from probation staff when I met them in the morning. The work they do in both enforcing the court's punishments and in helping offenders to become more law-abiding is really important, but all too often it goes unnoticed by the rest of us."

Hertfordshire Probation Trust Chief Executive Tessa Webb said: "We were delighted to be able to explain our work to Stephen and to show him the good Community Payback work being carried out by offenders."