Ex-offender Jay shows others the way

Jay Oatley first arrived at the warehouse of the Paul Satori charity as an offender serving a community sentence – now less than three years later he’s running the place.

After completing his 160 hours of unpaid work for driving offences he stayed on as a volunteer and so impressed the cancer care charity’s bosses that when the job of distribution and warehouse manager came up, he was successful.

When new offenders arrive to start their community orders they are often surprised to hear that their new "boss" has been through the system too.

"I’m a firm believer that if you’ve done something wrong you do the time and I think my experience helps. They come here, they work hard and they can be proud of what they do. They might be out on the van collecting furniture we’ve had donated, working in the warehouse or delivering items to new owners. We show them a bit of trust and that’s important to them," said Jay.

The charity which provides palliative nursing care for cancer patients in their own homes has 10 shops across Pembrokeshire as well as the warehouse at Honeyborough, Neyland. Between 20 and 30 offenders carry out unpaid work for the charity each week.

Jay said: "We have a great relationship with the Community Payback team, we would be really stuck without them."

Offenders can be sentenced to take part in unpaid work for up to four days a week on projects nominated by the public for the benefit of local communities.

It is physically demanding and enables offenders to pay something back for their offending behaviour, whilst learning practical skills and other qualities such as time keeping, team work, and interpersonal skills which improve their employment prospects.