ALI KEFFORD meets a former convict who has turned his life around and now helps prisoners' families cope while their loved ones are serving time

AS the 'fragrant' Mary Archer will now know all too well, when someone you love goes to prison, the impact on family life is enormous.

Experts estimate around 40 per cent of marriages fall apart.

Households lose a bread-winner and children suffer as a result of the sudden poverty, as well as often falling foul of spiteful playground bullies.

Sometimes social services are called in and the family unit splits still further if the kids are taken into care.

There is no guarantee that the loved one will be sent to a nearby prison - again, as the Archers have found out, with Jeffrey due to be transferred to the Isle of Wight, hundreds of miles from his Cambridge-shire home.

There are, in fact, 156 prisons scattered right across the country.

And in each is a leaflet from a Southampton-based registered charity, which works tirelessly to ease the lives of prisoners' partners and help inmates reintegrate themselves into the outside world when they are freed.

The Door UK has 40 volunteers - 18 of which are based here.

It estimates there are currently 500 children in the city with a parent in prison.

"It's these families here we really want to reach. We tried to set up a support group but we had more people coming up from Bournemouth than we had from Southampton itself," says founder Brian Sinclair.

"These families live in the shadows - they won't come forward. All the woman probably say their partners are 'working on the oil rigs'."

Brian, 46, is undoubtedly a tough man.

He's been going straight for nearly two decades.

But, way back in his past, he too did a stint behind bars.

Brian's also a man on a mission.

His determination to help a sector of society often overlooked - or even reviled - is relentless.

A recent street collection he organised in Southampton netted £723.

"It's quite a hard project to fund because a lot of people are against the prisoners.

"We try to keep family ties together. And we try to rehabilitate prisoners, integrate them back into society in the hope they won't re-offend.

"I'm a Christian and it was God who gave me the vision to do this."

It was, in fact, in Dartmoor that Brian was converted.

The prison in the middle of the moor is a bleak place when the sun is out. In the rainy depths of winter, there's an air of pure misery hanging over the group of grim Victorian buildings.

"It was a difficult regime in there - I did five months in solitary confinement for rebelling. I think it did me good.

"My family didn't help me in anything. I was a youngster of 17 the first time I went to prison and my dad rejected me from then on."

"When I came out I didn't have any support."

For three months a fellow inmate tried to persuade the 46-year-old to go to church - to no avail.

Then, finally, Brian capitulated, holding up his hands and declaring his faith in front of a full room of inmates.

"I had received the Holy Spirit. God laid on my heart the need to go back to prisons and help them out. I joined a local church and we're still there."

Following his release, Brian worked hard to sort out his life.

He met and married his wife Amanda.

They have four children.

Brian then threw himself into realising his dream - planning his charity in the garden shed of his Southampton home.

Before long it had enveloped his entire life and he admits, with hindsight, that this caused problems in his marriage.

Now, however, he only works week days.

The Door UK's headquarters have moved to Northam where, in a bizarre twist of fate, they have been burgled and donations stolen.

Brian's workload continues to rise and he's currently looking to recruit an assistant.

One of his main jobs is to regularly drive hundreds of miles so prisoners' wives and girlfriends can visit their men behind bars.

They don't have to be Christians themselves to receive this often relationship-saving aid - it's available to people of all religious denominations and atheists alike.

Towards the end of an inmate's sentence the charity offers to visit them to help he or she prepare for the massive changes about to occur in their lives.

Brian is currently in contact with a number of men coming to the end of life sentences.

They're not 'prisoners' to him but 'people in prison': "They're still human beings."

"I know people who don't want to come out at all," he says.

"They're too frightened - they can't handle it. They get fed, they get looked after. Prison officers have to drag them out of the cell and push them out of the door."

Without knowing it Brian has created exactly the sort of organisation Whitehall would applaud.

A report by the chief inspector of prisons recommended increasing schemes where inmates are rehabilitated back into society.

"We've got contact with 130 prisoners now, across the country, right up to Cumbria. We integrate them into churches, but they don't have to be Christians for us to help them.

"If I can be a friend to them - just sit with them - then I will."

Isn't he justly proud of what he's achieved?: "I don't see it that way. I have a good life now. I'm happily married with four children. My aim is to see other people have this. I'm here to help them."

He says the fact he too has served time helps prisoners form a bond with him: "They trust me," he says.

And what does he make of Lord Archer's fall from grace?

"I think he was waiting to go to prison wasn't he? It's only tough in prison if you draw attention to yourself. If you keep your head down you're alright."

The Door UK can be contacted at: PO Box 707, Southampton, SO18 2WJ or on 023 8063 3500.