BURDON Grange, the home of C-FAR went up for sale for £950,000 last week, but the founders of the pioneering scheme hope to find a philanphropic buyer who would lease the building back to allow the charity to be resurrected. The Centre for Adolescent Rehabilitation (C-FAR) went into liquidation last Friday after three years based at Highampton, citing lack of government funding for its collapse. C-FAR founder Lt Col Trevor Philpott said five members of staff were continuing to negotiate to try to establish ?C-FAR Mark II?: ?Obviously, there are lessons that can been learned. We will be looking to increase the level of partnership work with other voluntary organisations.? Lt Col Philpott claims the programme had already demonstrated its effectiveness as the reconviction rate for C-FAR participants was 45%, significantly lower than the national average of 75%. The week in which C-FAR went into liquidation also saw the publication of an MPs? report which estimated re-offenders in England cost the taxpayer £11-billion a year, in terms of the total cost of re-offending to victims, police and the court system. A Commons education select committee report called for a dramatic increase in the quality and quantity of education for prisoners if they are to be prevented from re-offending. The committee?s chairman, Labour MP Barry Sheerman, said: ?Education has a key role in rehabilitating prisoners into society and finding them secure employment.?
