How do secure training centres deal with challenging behaviour? Not with the double embrace technique, that’s for sure. Cuddly as it sounds, this form of restraint was withdrawn by the Youth Justice Board in June 2004 on the advice of an expert panel. Instead, pain distraction techniques to the nose, thumb and rib are used.

Graffiti may be the art form of choice for some collectors, but most urban scrawlers can expect nothing more than a fixed penalty notice of £80 in return for their efforts. Not all local authorities seem to pursue perpetrators, but the North East is a bit of a hotspot. In 2004-05, Gateshead Council issued 26 fixed penalty notices for spray-can renegades out of the UK total of 47.

MRSA has been responsible for a number of deaths in care homes in recent years. In 2005, a total of 146 residents died as a result of the condition – 13 of these deaths were in NHS nursing homes while 87 were in nonNHS nursing homes. A further 37 residents died in private and nine in local authority residential homes.

Interpreters for people being interrogated cost the Metropolitan Police £8.8 million in 2005-06 – reckoned to be about a half of the cost nationwide.

Doctors are prescribing fewer sleeping pills. In 1997, 10.6 million prescriptions were given out to insomniacs. This fell to 9.9 million in 2006.

It’s really difficult to get your passport photo right. The most common reasons for application rejection by the Identity and Passport Service is not looking straight at the camera (7.5 per cent), failing to adopt a neutral expression (12.5 per cent) and obscuring the eyes in some way (17.5 per cent).

Of 1,003 prisoners in England and Wales over the age of 65, 185 are in jail for the offence of violence against the person while 642 have committed sexual offences.

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