MP calls for assaults on children in custody to stop

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 4th Apr 2008

Mid Dorset and North Poole MP Annette Brooke is backing the NSPCC's call for an end to painful techniques used to keep discipline among children in custody.

The children's charity is urging the Government to ban distraction techniques - painful methods of striking and restraining teenagers - and restrict the use of physical restraint to only the most extreme circumstances.

Physical restraint was used on nearly 5000 (1) occasions in young offender institutions and secure training centres in England and Wales between April and December last year, resulting in 154 injuries, including loss of consciousness and damage to internal organs.

According to prison rules the use of force to restrain 12-17-year-olds in secure training centres 'must always be viewed as the final option'. But children in custody interviewed for the NSPCC see it as just part of custody life and say staff sometimes use it to teach them a lesson as well as to stop fights.

MP Annette Brooke, a parliamentary ambassador for the NSPCC, said: "Two boys, Adam Rickwood and Gareth Myatt, have died in custody in recent years following the use of restraint techniques. If pain restraint techniques were used by an adult on a child in any home, school or other setting they could be seen as acts of assault.

"Therefore I join the NSPCC's urgent call on the Government to ban the use of pain restraint techniques and ensure that physical restraint is only used in the most extreme circumstances."

NSPCC assistant director for Dorset, Trish O'Donnell, said: "The use of physical restraint should also only be used in the most extreme circumstances and even then it should not intend to cause pain. Many children will have suffered abuse or been caught-up in domestic violence before going into custody. They need care not harsh treatment.

"Prison officers looking after these children have a difficult job which is why there should be adequate numbers of staff who have been properly trained to defuse difficult situations."