THE Government has defended the use of probation hostels to house violent offenders on prison parole.

It comes after it emerged that James Colby was staying at a York hostel, also known as “approved premises”, when he attacked a 15-year-old girl in the grounds of her school.

He had arrived at Southview in Boroughbridge Road the previous day on parole, having been released partway through a nine-year sentence for a hammer attack in a block of flats in Hull that his barrister David Dixon described as a “serious assault in a domestic party setting”.

The Parole Board has since revoked his prison licence and returned him to prison.

York Crown Court heard he will now serve the rest of the nine-year sentence behind bars as well as the six-month sentence which he received for grabbing the girl from behind and putting his fingers in her mouth.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Approved premises have fully-trained staff on-site 24 hours a day, as well as CCTV. Offenders who live in approved premises are subject to strict licence conditions and room searches, are carefully supervised by staff and must follow a structured regime, which includes an overnight curfew.

“Such strict supervision, which includes joint work with the police to closely monitor these individuals, would be much more difficult to achieve if those offenders had to be dispersed into alternative accommodation in the community.”

The jury who tried Colby, 28, of no fixed address, saw footage from the hostel showing Colby there on November 27 and November 28.

They also heard from a member of staff who told them of his concerns about Colby on his return to the hostel at 8.15pm on November 28, having been out all day, and how he contacted police, who arrested Colby the same night at the hostel.

The school is in a different part of York to the hostel and CCTV footage from street and shop cameras showed Colby walking from the city centre to the school.

He told the jury he had spent the late morning and lunchtime street drinking with another resident and that residents were banned from returning to the hostel after they had consumed alcohol.