Music teacher creating stir with pupils in prison choir

A CLASSICAL musician is teaching some of the country's toughest convicts to sing after setting up the UK's first prison choir.

Shona Brown, 27, is working with inmates at Addiewell prison in West Lothian to keep them in tune.

The flautist and singer, a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year, was approached by bosses at the privately-run jail who wanted to offer singing classes to inmates as part of their rehabilitation.

Ms Brown plays piano during the weekly 90-minute sessions while the prisoners sing tunes by Scots rock band Biffy Clyro, country legend Johnny Cash and the Beatles.

She admitted she was nervous on her first visit there at the prospect of being in a room alone with a group of criminals.

However, Ms Brown, from Motherwell, Lanarkshire, said: "All the prisoners have been absolutely fine with me. The numbers coming along has been increasing. I think it can be quite hard in a male prison for someone to say 'I'm going to the choir' but it is slowly building up."