'Staggering' levels of restraint prompt call for Oakhill closure

Anne Owers made the call after inspectors found restraint had been used 757 times on young prisoners at Oakhill in the nine months before its Ofsted assessment. The inspection also found the highest level of restraint - which requires at least three members of staff, including one to hold the child's head - had been used 532 times.

Owers said Oakhill's staff struggled to maintain order and safely control some of the children in their care and, although a new director was getting to grips with the issues, the task remained immense.

"It might be more realistic for the Youth Justice Board to empty the centre briefly, so it can be relaunched with a properly trained and reinvigorated staff, focused on appropriate levels of order and control, good quality purposeful activity, dynamic security and an emphasis on appropriate behaviour within clear boundaries," she said. Owers described the level of restraint as "staggering", with Ofsted rating the Milton Keynes facility as inadequate.