Editorial: Youth justice must learn from inquests

Fifteen-year-old Myatt was at the beginning of a year-long sentence at the Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre in Northamptonshire in April 2004. He died after losing consciousness while being restrained by staff using a technique known as the "seated double embrace", which involves securing young people in an interlocking hold while they are seated.

The procedure, suspended soon afterwards by the Youth Justice Board (YJB), was one of the "physical control in care" restraining techniques administered in England's four secure training centres, which are not supposed to involve the application of pain. There were no less than 11,500 incidents of restraint in the five years up to September 2005. They are meant to be used only when a young person's behaviour is deemed to be of risk to inmates and staff. A subsequent independent inquiry into restraint chaired by Lord Carlile heard evidence that staff would "bait" young people into situations leading them to be restrained for the adult's gratification and that detainees would seek physical restraint from staff to gratify their own sexual needs.