UK jails under fire as brutalities surface

London: Shocking details of techniques used to inflict pain deliberately on children in privately run jails have been revealed for the first time in a government document obtained by the Observer.

Some of the restraint and self-defence measures approved by the Ministry of Justice include ramming knuckles into ribs and raking shoes down the shins.

Other extraordinary passages in the previously secret manual, Physical Control in Care, authorise staff to: "Use an inverted knuckle into the trainee's sternum and drive inward and upward. Continue to carry alternate elbow strikes to the young person's ribs until a release is achieved."

"Drive straight fingers into the young person's face, and then quickly drive the straightened fingers of the same hand downwards into the young person's groin area."

The disclosure of the prison service manual follows a five-year freedom of information battle. The manual was condemned last night by campaigners as "state authorisation of institutionalised child abuse".

Government rules

Published by the HM Prison Service in 2005 and classified as a restricted government document, the manual guides staff on what restraint and self-defence techniques are authorised for use on children as young as 12 in secure training centres.

The centres are purpose-built facilities for young offenders up to the age of 17 and run by private firms under government contracts.

Instructions to staff warn that the techniques risk giving children a "fracture to the skull" and "temporary or permanent blindness caused by rupture to eyeball or detached retina".

The guidance, designed to cope with unruly children, also acknowledges that the measures could cause asphyxia.

Carolyne Willow, national co-ordinator of the Children's Rights Alliance for England, which led the campaign for disclosure following the deaths of two teenage boys in secure training centres, said: "The manual is deeply disturbing and stands as state authorisation of institutionalised child abuse.

"What made former ministers believe that children as young as 12 could get so out of control so often that staff should be taught how to ram their knuckles into their rib cages?

"Would we allow paediatricians, teachers or children's home staff to be trained in how to deliberately hurt and humiliate children?"

The campaign for publication began following the deaths of Gareth Myatt and Adam Rickwood. Myatt, 15, died while being held down by three staff at Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre in Warwickshire.

In the same year, 2004, 14-year-old Rickwood, from Burnley, hanged himself at the Hassockfield Secure Training Centre. A judge ruled last year that the carers who restrained Rickwood used unlawful force.