A rehabilitation course at HMP Pentonville that won praise from peers and prison inspectors has come to an end. It failed an assessment by a controversial Prison Service panel.
Time4Change began in 2019. It aimed to steer young men in prison away from crime. The last group of participants finished the course before Christmas.
The National Framework for Interventions Panel made the ruling. Last year the same panel stopped the Sycamore Tree Restorative Justice programme. Around 40,000 prisoners had taken part in Sycamore Tree over 25 years.
The Ministry of Justice said Time4Change “does not meet the evidence standards required for approval” as an intervention designed to cut reoffending. It said the panel assessed courses through a consistent and transparent points-based process. However, it declined to say what score Time4Change had received.
A source close to the course said the panel had wanted changes to the part psychologists played in it. The course leaders refused, the source said, because they believed the changes would undermine the programme.
How the course worked
The idea grew out of conversations in 2016. Young men held at Pentonville talked with Custodial Manager Ricardo Lafuente-Dyer about how to prevent violence. The prison then arranged for the rapper Big Narstie to attend an event, and the concept developed from there.
The programme offered counselling and discussions about consent, knives and parenting. Former prisoners who had completed it returned as mentors. Each course finished with a graduation ceremony.
Prison officers ran Time4Change. Charity funding and money from the governor’s discretionary budget paid for it.
CM Lafuente-Dyer, who devised and led the course, won a Butler Trust award for the work.
Praise from peers and inspectors
Lord Hastings spoke about Time4Change in the House of Lords in 2024. He told peers he was attending a graduation at Pentonville for 100 young men, alongside former participants who had gone on to positive lives.
The Prisons Minister, Lord Timpson, replied that he was always pleased to hear of schemes that succeeded in this task.
Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, also called the course valuable. His inspection report on Pentonville last year was otherwise damning. Yet he picked out Time4Change as a positive feature of the jail. He highlighted the experience and ability of its facilitators in working with a hard-to-engage age group.
The Revd Jonathan Aitken, a chaplain at Pentonville, supported the course. “I am astonished and appalled at this truly bad decision by the MoJ umpires,” he said.
Godfrey Poku took part in Time4Change while in prison and now teaches at a primary school. “I cannot believe this is happening,” he said.
Pentonville is a Category B reception prison for men in London, according to the Prison News directory. At its full inspection in September 2025, inspectors rated safety, purposeful activity and preparation for release as poor. They rated respect as not sufficiently good.
