Insurance company to give away 'second chance' Amy Winehouse painting

Bureau Insurance Services (BIS) in St Leonards Road decided to commission the piece of artwork, painted by 44 year old ex-offender Dean Stalham, after they recently became involved with The Koestler Trust.

The Koestler Trust runs an award scheme which provides prisoners and ex-prisoners with the opportunity for rehabilitation and expression through visual and performing arts.

Talented Dean, who has himself been jailed twice, has won two Koestler awards for his work; one for a painting and another for a play which he wrote whilst in jail.

In addition to having had two of his plays performed at London fringe venues, Dean now also works for the trust.

Managing director of BIS, Chris Jordan explained their reasons for getting involved with the trust. He said: "Despite having been in Bexhill since 1997 and employing fourteen members of staff, many people still don't know about us or what services we offer. We specialise in very difficult to insure cases and nobody really knows that we are here. We deal not only with household insurance for properties that have had subsidence, or that have been flooded, but also for people who want household insurance who have criminal convictions - of which there are about 4 million adults in this country."

He added: "We got involved because we do various sponsorships and obviously dealing with people who have criminal convictions we felt that it would be nice to sponsor them. Dean Stalham is clearly a very talented artist and he's our kind of mainstay, we wanted a painting that represented a 'second-chance', and he chose to produce this painting of Amy Winehouse."

Chris is taking the painting to the British Insurers Brokers Association (BIBA) conference in Glasgow in May where they plan to give it away in a raffle.

He said: "It is a fantastic painting and we will be quite sad to give it away. It will clearly be worth thousands."

For more information on the Koestler Trust visit the website at: www.koestlertrust.org.uk

or for Bureau Insurance Services: www.bureauinsure.co.uk