Staff in children’s prisons have been forbidden to use physical restraint to control disruptive youngsters, after an Appeal Court ruling yesterday.

Three judges quashed a move to broaden the circumstances in which staff could restrain children in secure units, saying that this was a breach of their human rights.

As a result of the ruling, officers in child prisons can use restraint methods only to prevent inmates escaping from custody, causing injury to themselves, damaging property or inciting another inmate to escape or damage property.

New rules allowing wider use of restraint techniques in secure training centres had been brought in to legiti-mise practices by contractors running four centres holding young offenders and suspects aged 12-17. Private companies running the centres lobbied for the change, saying it would be difficult to keep order without the power to restrain youngsters physically. The rule change was introduced last June after the deaths of two youths in separate incidents in 2004.

Gareth Myatt, 15, was asphyxiated while he was being restrained by three staff members at Rainsbrook secure training centre in Northamptonshire. Adam Rickwood, 14, hanged himself after being restrained in the secure training centre at Hassockfield, Co Durham.

In a recent appeal brought by a youth, known as RC, Lord Justice Buxton said the restraint methods amounted to “inhuman and degrading treatment” contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The ruling was critical of the way in which the four secure training centres – Rainsbrook, Hassockfield, Oakhill, in Milton Keynes, and Medway, in Kent – were run.

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