Convicted criminals in Bradford are baking buns for charity as part of their work-based punishment programme.

The offenders are all serving Community Service orders - the severest sentences dished out by judges and magistrates except for jail.

The week-long initiative, being carried out at OAP homes and support centres, was devised by probation bosses to support a cash-strapped criminal work scheme in Africa.

The Zimbabwean Community Service programme, which recently received an international award for its achievements, faces crisis because it lacks the resources to buy tools for those taking part.

It had been nominated for the prestigious Payback award - presented at an international probation conference in London - by the former Chief Probation Officer for West Yorkshire Anne Mace.

She had inspected the project twice on behalf of the Zimbabwe Government.

After learning how it desperately needed money for equipment, the West Yorkshire service decided to support its African counterpart.

The 16 fundraisers will bake cakes at a number of elderly people's homes as well as an Age Concern Centre.

They have all been ordered to carry out unpaid work for between 40 and 240 hours in order to repay their debt to society for anything from car crime to assault.

Jacqueline Lamb, Bradford's Community Service manager, said the cakes would be sold at lunch clubs for the elderly as well as to other offenders on the scheme.

She said: "They have taken to it really well."

The workers usually cooked lunches for the clubs as part of their community service sentence and were overseen and advised by a trained supervisor, said Mrs Lamb.

Elsewhere in West Yorkshire, Community Service workers are staging other fundraising events such as a sponsored walk at Saltaire and washing cars in Wakefield and Leeds.

Mark Berry, a West Yorkshire Community Service manager, said: "While most Community Service work benefits our own local communities, this initiative brings a wider perspective to our work. The potential benefits to Third World communities are clear, in that they will have access to the sort of service which is already made available in West Yorkshire."

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