Rethink Use Of Restraint On Young Offenders, Urges Coroner

A coroner called yesterday for an urgent review of the use of restraint on young offenders after a jury returned a suicide verdict on a vulnerable 14-year-old who hanged himself with his shoelaces at a privately-run secure unit.

Adam Rickwood was the youngest person to die in custody in Britain for more than 50 years when he took his life after begging his mother to get him moved from the centre at Consett, Co Durham, where he had been for less than a month.

A four-week inquest heard that the boy had been forcibly restrained by four staff shortly before his death three years ago, and a controversial technique designed to cause brief but sharp pain by twisting and squeezing the nose had been used to force him to go to his room.

A few hours later, a care officer found the body of the boy, who had threatened to kill himself in letters home and was known to have mental health problems with suicidal tendencies.

The jury of nine women and one man at Chester-le-Street coroner’s court exonerated care staff at Hassockfield secure training centre, run by the prison specialist company Serco. They reached a nine-one majority verdict after four days’ deliberation.

The coroner, Andrew Tweddle, had asked the jury to consider 11 questions, including whether the centre, 150 miles from Adam’s home in Burnley, was the right place for him, and whether staff had acted appropriately in the run-up to his death. The jury replied yes to both, but found that Lancashire social services should have done more to get details of the boy’s vulnerability to the Youth Justice Board before the decision to pick Hassockfield was made.

The findings were criticised by Adam’s mother, Carol Pounder. She said after the hearing: “I am disgusted at not having a full inquiry into the death of a very vulnerable child, my only son. The jury was not given the whole of the evidence relating to his death.

“What gives anyone the right to allow four men, weighing 58 stone between them, to restrain a 14-year-old boy, cause him pain and injure his nose for refusing to go to his room? If that had happened at home, I would have been charged.”

The coroner took a stronger line than the jury’s findings, expressing concern about the brief violence used to force Adam to comply. He said: “There needs to be the most urgent and thorough investigation and review of the interrelationship between the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, secure training centre (STC) rules and the directors’ rules (which apply to STC heads) to avoid any confusion of what applies where and when.”

Adam’s death increased concern about uncertainty in the treatment of young people in custody. The campaign group Inquest called earlier this year for a detailed inquiry into the use of restraint in institutions housing young offenders. Adam was sent to Hassockfield, one of three centres of its type in England, after being remanded on charges of wounding and taking a vehicle without consent.

The day before his death, he lost privileges, including a sound centre and TV in his room, after two cigarettes smuggled in by his mother were found in his trainers.

The family’s solicitor, Mark Scott, said after the verdict: “The jury, Mrs Pounder and her family have been denied the opportunity to have a full inquiry into all points surrounding Adam’s death.”

The care officer who used the nose technique, Stephen Hodgson, told the inquest earlier: “There is no way I would hurt a child in our care, that’s why I warned him twice. The manual says we are supposed to warn them once, but I did it twice.”