Convicts are taking our jobs say binmen

The idea of working alongside convicts infuriated the refuse collectors but 15 of them also claim it has caused their hours to be slashed as the inmates are on lower wages.

Prisoners including a drug smuggler and a killer have been bussed to Manchester from HMP Kirkham, in Preston, Lancs, to take part in the controversial plan.

Aaron Wade, 22, worked from the depot in Wythenshawe, Manchester and was employed by the same agency as the prisoners, EnterpriseManchester, for five days a week. Then, a month ago, the company took on prisoners full-time. He now claims his shifts have dried up. He said: “I’m appalled by it. It’s a joke. What does it say to hardworking people like me? I never let them down once and I’m being penalised for being a law-abiding citizen.

“Times are hard enough and now they do this to us. It’s really unfair. It’s atrocious being treated like this.”

The convicts are driven by the Prison Service from the Category D open jail every morning and then left to make their own way back to the jail.

Bosses at EnterpriseManchester said there are no financial incentives to employ the prisoners, who are on a six-month probationary period earning “a slightly lower” salary than other full-time workers. David Bond, a senior human resources manager at En­terpriseManchester, said the scheme was about rehabilitating inmates to prevent re-offending.

He added: “Providing employment opportunities has been shown to make the city safer.”

In total eight convicts are working for the firm.

One prisoner employed as a binman is 48-year-old Jeff Carter, jailed for eight years in 2005 after admitting his part in a plot to smuggle heroin and cocaine worth £744,000 into the country.

Another was 29-year-old Lee Malaney, sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail after being found guilty of kidnap and manslaughter in 2005. Last night Enterprise-Manchester stressed that Malaney was no longer working for it.