OFFENDERS have been giving a helping hand with the creation of a garden of remembrance in Redcar.

They are on a community service scheme, run by Teesside Probation Service, and are racing against the clock to get the garden ready for its opening, this weekend.

Community service is a sentence passed by magistrates as an alternative to prison. It involves offenders doing unpaid work for the community.

The garden, opposite Redcar Cenotaph, in Coatham Road, Redcar, has been built in memory of 15 Redcar citizens who were killed during a bombing raid on Redcar in the Second World War.

The opening, on Saturday, comes on the 59th anniversary of the attack, in 1941. Teams of community service offenders have developed the garden in four weeks, and have been involved in laying paths, building walls, and creating a raised flowerbed. Redcar town centre manager Carolyn Jones said: "The community service teams have been fantastic and have done everything we've asked of them.