FURIOUS residents planning to block County Durham's first bail hostel say a Home Office report backs up their arguments.

There has been outrage since plans were announced last month for a 25-bedroom bail hostel in the centre of Chester-le-Street.

Public meetings with the Probation Service were cancelled because the town did not have a venue big enough to hold all the protestors. Last week, residents rejected a tour of a similar facility in Bensham, near Gateshead.

Now protestor Jim Greer, a resident of nearby Picktree Terrace, has uncovered a Home Office report published in 1998 that appears to contradict Probation Service assertions that all bail hostel residents are subject to a rigorous risk assessment.

The report stated that, "in only 51 per cent of cases was it clear that a sufficient assessment of the risk of harm to other residents, staff or the public had been completed prior to admission".

Another passage said that hostel staff were sometimes put under pressure to accept a resident without having made a proper risk assessment.

Residents also point to a crime and disorder audit of a similar facility in Wandsworth, London, which said that residential burglary was likely to rise near bail hostels.

Mr Greer said: "The Probation Service have told us that they won't put anyone who is a risk to the public in this hostel, but according to this report, that isn't true.

"Up and down the country, there are stories of people leaving their bail hostels and attacking innocent people, or burgling their homes.

"We understand that people just out of prison or on bail need to be housed somewhere, but why in a large facility near residential homes in the middle of a town?"

Mary Beweley, spokeswoman for County Durham Probation Service, said: "The point of the report was to encourage best practice. The North-East hostels do have a good track record in terms of practice.

"In County Durham, there has been a lot of work done in public protection. We have developed the pioneering Public Protection Unit which track and monitors the movements of dangerous offenders.