Chelsea girl reforms mugger

They live only a few miles apart, but the lives of Chelsea interior designer Emily Crompton and Michael Rolle, a Peckham teenager just released from prison, could hardly be more different.

But they agreed to be thrown together for six months in a social experiment for TV to see whether 22-year-old Emily could have a stabilising influence on Michael, 18.

Along the way there were tears, tantrums and, for Emily, a string of disappointments. Yet Michael is now studying music technology at college under a Prince's Trust scheme. He has not re-offended and the pair have stayed in touch.

They first met when he had been released after serving nine months for mugging a young woman.

Emily was appointed moral guardian but came up against his temper and reluctance to do anything with his life. There were doubts about whether a committed mentor can help someone change.

The experiment, seen in a major new BBC series, Make Me Honest, echoes a new approach to the justice-system pioneered in the US. Emily had a happy childhood and is successful. Michael grew up with his single-parent mother in inner-city London, fell in with a bad crowd and left school with no GCSEs. He said: "I've done street robbery, armed robbery; I've sold drugs. If I carry on that way, I'll end up dead or back in jail."

The series shows the pair quickly hit it off. But he soon refuses to pay a £100 court fine - a move that could send him back to prison. It prompts their first row and Emily complains when he throws litter. His response: "Don't blame me, blame society."

Michael does agree to help on a decorating job but fails to turn up, claiming a train broke down. Emily says: "He was lying in bed. How stupid does he think I am?"

When he finally runs out of money, they row in the street when he says "I will rob someone". But Emily quickly finds him work cleaning a pub. Then she turns up at his home to find his mother has moved out and neighbours are complaining about Michael terrorising local children with a fake gun. When she confronts him, he says: "If it was a real gun I would have shot her [a neighbour]."

The crunch comes with a boot camp-style country weekend. Michael won't even agree to swap his trainers for walking boots. Emily brands him "pathetic" and breaks down in tears. Reluctantly, he agrees - and, by the end, he does enter the spirit of the trip.

Emily describes it as a turning point and he gets accommodation at a hostel and building work. He earns £150 but breaks his promise to pay off his court fine.

Emily, one of the few people to remember his 19th birthday, said: "Now it's up to him whether he takes the easy road or the hard road. I hope he takes the hard road, because the last thing I want is to get a call saying he's been arrested. That would break my heart."