THE probation chief who resigned over the murder of two French students by a violent convicted criminal has hit out at Justice Secretary Jack Straw.

David Scott stepped down as head of London Probation after the conviction last week of Dano Sonnex.

He claimed that when it came to releasing high-risk prisoners, ministerial policy is to "keep quiet wherever possible, and to resort to damage limitation when things go wrong".

Mr Scott said the probation service faced "enormous challenges every hour of every day", and he accused Mr Straw of masking a "very real lack of resources with charges of ineptitude".

Sonnex and his accomplice Nigel Farmer were found guilty of stabbing Laurent Bonomo and fellow student Gabriel Ferez 244 times during a "sadistic" attack.

It emerged that Sonnex, 23, should have been recalled to prison before the murders after reoffending, but mistakes by the probation service contributed to delays in his arrest.

Mr Straw said afterwards that failings were not the result of a lack of probation service resources, but through not using the resources "effectively".

Writing in The Guardian, Mr Scott said London Probation's primary responsibility was supervising the release of serious offenders. He said: "How does the probation service speak out about its primary function without raising public alarm? Suffice to say, ministerial policy has been to keep quiet wherever possible, and to resort to damage limitation when things go wrong.

"In common with all public sector organisations, probation does not and will never have sufficient resources to do all it would like to do.

"Probation chiefs accept this and work hard to prioritise and balance the available resources with the demands. But for Jack Straw to dismiss lack of resources as a factor in the Sonnex case and deny that there is any such lack in the service as a whole is quite simply wrong."