Roman pottery digs made prisoner 'feel human again'

A group of inmates has unearthed Roman pottery in a Wiltshire prison as part of an archaeology project.

Inmates at HMP Erlestoke have been working on the scheme run by Wessex Archaeology overseen by Phil Harding, former Time Team presenter.

He said: “I was almost convinced that they wouldn’t have found anything but actually when I started looking through the stuff I thought, 'stone me.'"

With more than a third of prisoners re-offending after being released it was hoped schemes like this could get through to offenders in a way conventional learning might have previously failed.

The BBC was was given exclusive access inside HMP Erlestoke in Wiltshire, and spoke to two of the prisoners who took part in the dig.

The men were both serving long sentences for violent crimes and prison staff asked us not to identify them.

One of the prisoners said he was able to forget about being in prison and felt he was treated like any volunteer helping out on a dig.

“That was amazing, you felt like a human being again instead of this sub-class of prisoner," he added.

The second of the prisoners told us he also enjoyed taking part.

He said “I was jumping up every morning and going to sleep every night thinking 'Wow did that really just happen today? Did I find Roman pottery":[]}