A 28-year-old former heroin addict has said he asked a judge to return him to Winchester prison so he could use support services to help him back on track.

Glynn Read, speaking from a Wiltshire rehabilitation clinic, where he's been for six weeks, told how he viewed the Custody to Work team at the Romsey Road unit as his only chance to break a cycle of drugs and imprisonment.

When he was sentenced in November 2002, he asked to be locked up in Winchester, he claimed.

"It would have been impossible to get here without the help of Custody to Work, because of my addiction," said Glynn. "I would have come out of prison and ended up back on the streets, back with my heroin addiction.

"If it wasn't for the chance I had in prison I wouldn't be at this centre - I actually asked for a prison sentence so I would have access to Custody to Work. There was no other way I could have done it."

He said the Amber Foundation, a residential clinic, was geared towards helping people find work and education as much as supporting addicts quitting a drug habit.

"It's rehabilitation but it's about getting you back into the workplace, building your confidence. It's trying to get you used to the outside environment," he added.

Glynn is now also able to see his two young children and he said his family was "over the moon" with his progress.

"They've seen me at death's door basically, but now I'm looking well and I'm finally doing something for myself, which I haven't really done for about 10 years."

He added: "I'm standing here with two envelopes in my hand, about carpentry courses at Swindon and Reading. That's what I really want to do.

"You have to want to do it - but you also need to be given the chance. Custody to Work is trying to give you the chance."

Glynn's comments came after the prison Board of Visitors praised pioneering schemes designed to help inmates get back on their feet.

The independent report said Custody to Work, which was set up in May, 2002, had resulted in 79 inmates being housed on release and 212 jobs being found or saved.

At the end of this month, the prison has organised a two-day conference to try to encourage more companies to start employing former prisoners.

Ivan Augustus, prison spokesman, said: "Of all the work I have had to do in 30 years in the Prison Service, this is the most positive and enjoyable. It puts the hope back in prison.

"People come into prison and they are places that can be morbid, where you lock people away. But in this scheme you can engage with prisoners to address their needs."

He said that for prisoners to ask to go to Winchester Prison to make use of the services was "a testimony to the skills of the staff".

"To me, that's very pleasing," he added. "The relationship between staff and prisoners is at the heart of the resettlement work we are aspiring to do. It's so fundamental."

* Winchester prison is currently undergoing a £16m refurbishment to make it safer for inmates. Work has already started and is expected to take place over the next two years to modernise the Victorian building and create 32 "safer custody cells" to prevent suicides and self-harm.