Emotional end for Airborne offenders' project

• Airborne Initiative for young offenders closes

• General Manager Tony Burley gives emotional last message

• Critics believes initiative shut down due to ministers ‘embarrassed by chancers’

Key quote: "This is a very sad day, made even more so by the fact that there is now a huge gap and I don’t think - despite what the executive says - that they intend to address it."- Clive Fairweather, the former chief inspector of prisons and a supporter of the project

Story in full: THE Airborne Initiative for young offenders formally closed its doors yesterday after the Scottish Executive cut off its funding earlier this year.

In an emotional last message to staff, Tony Burley, general manager of the innovative Lanarkshire-based project, highlighted the pioneering work of the initiative over the past ten years.

The unit at Braidwood House, Carluke, stopped operating in January this year with the loss of 26 jobs after the Executive withdrew almost 600,000 of funding.

Critics believed the project was shut down in part because ministers were embarrassed by Chancers, a fly-on-the-wall documentary that showed inmates taking drugs and absconding. Although the Executive insisted the centre had failed to perform, insiders believe the decision to close the centre was political and linked to the "get-tough" policies on youth crime proposed by the First Minister.

In his message to staff, Mr Burley said yesterday: "It is with deep regret that after ten years at the forefront of working with male offenders, the Airborne Initiative has ceased trading. This is directly due to the withdrawal of funding by our principal funder, the Scottish Executive, even though we could demonstrate an improvement in results over the last year."

He added: "I would like to take this opportunity of thanking you all for your various roles in working for or with us, for visiting or supporting our work through all the peaks and troughs that is the life of a small voluntary-sector organisation doing what was, from all accounts of graduates, fellow professionals and the public, a great job with the most serious category of repeat offender. Who is doing it now?"

Last night, Mr Burley’s concerns were echoed by Clive Fairweather, the former chief inspector of prisons and a supporter of the project.

He said: "This is a very sad day, made even more so by the fact that there is now a huge gap and I don’t think - despite what the executive says - that they intend to address it."