Rapist and paedophile prisoners at HMP Stafford given GOATS to help them battle ‘anxiety’

PAEDOPHILE and rapist lags have been given goats to pet in a sex-offender only prison — to help them battle “anxiety”.

Inmates will get to stroke pygmy pair Stan and Ollie if they feel the need to calm down at 750-inmate Stafford jail.

And bosses at the jail, which once housed pervert entertainer Rolf Harris, quickly took to social media to hail the move as a boost for its “residents”, which include paedophiles and rapists.

Under a photo of the goats, which arrived last week, governor Ralph Lubkowski tweeted: “Excellent additions to the Stafford community, opportunities for our residents to care for them (I know our recycling team have already made a goat see-saw!) and we know how effective animals are in helping with mental health and anxiety.”

David Spencer, of the Centre for Crime Prevention, said sex offenders should be treated to prevent ­reoffending.

PREVENT REOFFENDING

But he added: “Quite how goat therapy is going to help is anybody’s guess.

“This looks like yet another case of taxpayers money being frittered away of giving convicted lags all manner of creature comforts while the needs of their victims continue to be neglected.

“With a new team of ministers in the MoJ, let’s hope it’s not too long before this wasteful spending is being clamped down on and prisons go back to being the places of correction they were always meant to be.”

But sources said the scheme was not funded by taxpayers but by cons’ own contributions from jail wages, prison shop profits and donations.

Sources also insisted the goats were used for autistic and depressed lags.

In December we revealed how HMP Swaleside, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, was running a similar “goat therapy” scheme paid for by taxpayers through the NHS.

Stafford holds around 750 cons, all of them sex offenders, with about 40 per cent aged 50 and older.

The Prison Service said: “These schemes are proven to calm aggressive prisoners and can be effective in making prisons safer.”

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