None of the 25 or so people it has worked with on its resettlement programme has so far returned to prison.

Only Connect is putting in place a system to track their progress, reviewing it every three months. The idea is that members will stay in contact with them indefinitely. "We are like a club, we're a membership organisation, and we want to be in a relationship with our guys, our members, for as long as they want us to be."

Accountability is crucial. The charity is small but Kruger says it could be highly effective on a larger scale, and thinks he could prove it. "We can make substantial savings for the taxpayer through this work. It costs £35,000 a year to send someone to prison, so if we stop 20 people a year going to prison, we've saved £700,000."

It is hard, unglamorous work, but Mr Kruger says that he is happy. "It feels good to be actually putting into practice some of the principles that I was writing about when I was in politics. This feels very real."