How a Lewisham bike repair shop is breaking the cycle of re-offending

Tap above to watch video report by Anila Dhami 

A new bike workshop in south-east London is training prison leavers to become bike mechanics in an initiative to help reduce reoffending.

XO Bikes in Lewisham shopping centre is the first business from charity Onwards & Upwards, which aims to create jobs for people who have been in the prison system.

The workshop, run by former ad executive Stefan Jones, provides the apprentices with the manual skills they need to fix and refurbish bikes.

Many of the bikes are ones that are lost or stolen and are donated to XO by the Metropolitan Police. When they are fixed up and sold the money is put back into the initiative.

Mr Jones called on other businesses to take a chance on ex-offenders.

"Thirty-five thousand men every year reoffend," he told ITV News London. "They go back inside. So we need all the other business over there to wake up to this talent."

"When you give these guys trust and hope you get so much back."

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