Serious concerns have been raised in a new report into the use of a London court’s cells during the prison overcrowding emergency this summer. The courts and prisons watchdogs criticised the use of “inadequate” cells to hold prisoners.

Older people are being left housebound and disabled by a lack of NHS foot-care services in England, Age Concern says. It cites Office of National Statistics figures from 2001 suggesting a third of over-65s cannot cut their own toe-nails and struggle to access NHS services.

The courts have been officially warned that teenagers who breach their Asbos should not normally be jailed and that “excessive” sentences should not be passed on adult offenders in similar circumstances.

{mosimage}The proposals from the official body that lays down guidelines on sentencing come after latest figures show that 46% of the 7,500 people successfully prosecuted for breaching their antisocial behaviour orders in 2005 were jailed.

The sentencing advisory panel, in its proposals for new guidelines to the courts for dealing with Asbo breaches, says that in most cases involving young offenders the appropriate sentence should be a community order.

The judges, police and prosecutors on the panel say that jail should only be considered for young people if their breach involved serious harassment, alarm or distress, or if there had been a series of serious breaches.

“In principle custody should be used less frequently for youths, so the threshold should be set at a higher level than the custody threshold for adults,” says the panel’s consultation proposals, published yesterday. “Even where the custody threshold is crossed a custodial sentence will not be inevitable. The younger the offender the more likely that perseverance with community orders will be more effective than detention in preventing re-offending.”