My report on Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre, commissioned by G4S and sent to the youth Justice Board, copied to the Ministry of Justice and G4S on July 28 2015

1. RAINSBROOK SECURETRAINING CENTRE
Introduction
Accompanied by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons and the Care
Quality Commission, Ofsted conducted an inspection of Rainsbrook
Secure Training Centre, in February of this year. This was the fifteenth
inspection of Rainsbrook since it opened in 1999. All previous inspection
ratings have been either good or outstanding (or the equivalent in an
earlier classification system).
The Inspectorates’ verdict on this occasion was that Rainsbrook was
inadequate (the initial assessment reported to G4S during the oral
feedback was adequate, later revised to inadequate). While the
achievement and resettlement of children were both rated as good, the
children’s behaviour was rated only as adequate and their safety and
well-being were both assessed as inadequate.
The effect of that judgement on the establishment’s staff (both those
employed by G4S and those employed by others including the NHS, the
Youth Justice Board and Barnardo’s) has been profound. When the
report was published the Association of Youth Offending Team
Managers demanded that the Youth Justice Board should cease placing
children at Rainsbrook.
In the light of the extensive news coverage, such a demand was not
unreasonable and the YJB must have considered removing the children.
For example, the Chief Inspector of Prisons told Radio 5 that the
Inspectorates were very concerned by what they found and that he had
been personally shocked by what he saw.
Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform
told the BBC:
This is the worst report on a prison I have ever seen because it is a
catalogue of abusive practices that have been inflicted on young children
who have no escape. These child jails run for profit are secretive and
should never have been set up in the first place. Rainsbrook should be
closed immediately. No child is safe in this jail.

2. She told the Independentthat Rainsbrook:
has the feel of a ghetto, in the originalsense of the word.
Understandably, the publicity seems adversely to have affected
recruitment at Rainsbrook. (a Google search for Rainsbrook produces
extremely negative results). The number of applicants for Training
Assistant (custody officer) posts has dropped markedly (despite a
competitive starting salary of around £21,000). At the recruitment day I
observed, only two of the eight shortlisted candidates – including some
employed by the Prison Service - attended.
Background
Since 2012, I have offered occasional advice to G4S on their care and
custody of children. Following publication of the Inspectorate report in
May, G4S asked if I would visit and provide my own impression of the
establishment. Subsequently, the Youth Justice Board, and then Michael
Gove, the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, expressed
an interest in my assessment. So, although this report is being sent to all
three parties simultaneously, I have treated the YJB, as the
Commissioner, as the primary recipient.
I was neither supervised nor accompanied during my four days visiting
the Institution. At my insistence I worked without terms of reference.
Nothing was organised for me. I drew keys and wandered through the
centre at will, speaking to staff and children as I wished. I dined with
children at lunch on my first day and at dinner on my second. I visited
living units and spoke to children there, in the education centre, and in
the Mother and Baby Unit. I also interviewed the Youth Justice Board
Monitors, the Manager from Barnardo’s Advocacy Service and the
Director who was in post at the time of the inspection. I observed a
regime-planning meeting for a child who had just arrived in the centre
and a final discharge review for a child about to be released. I attended a
review of force meeting and, I observed the recruitment process for new
training assistants and met the candidates.
I did not speak to children in focus groups or in any other similarly

3. contrived session. My experience is that children and young offenders
speak more openly, more frankly and generally more honestly, when
you speak to them informally, without fanfare and on their territory. So I
spent time speaking to boys and girls at lunch and dinner when I joined
their table, in their living units and in an informal session in education at
the end of the academic week. I sought out boys from a particular living
unit because, after some poor behaviour, they were deprived of some
privileges. They were therefore unlikely to be positive about their
incarceration.
The children
At the time of my visit there were about seventy children held in the
institution. As a secure training centre, Rainsbrook was designed
primarily for children as young as twelve and, a few years ago, the mean
age would have been about fourteen. Nearly all of those children would
have had relatively minor convictions, such as taking and driving away,
and the architecture reflects that. In comparison with any closed Young
Offenders Institute, it provides limited physical security. But because
many fewer very young children now receive custodial sentences, the
average age at Rainsbrook has now increased. The age range is from
fourteen to eighteen and the mean age is now sixteen. Some children
now held there have been convicted of very serious offences and are
serving long sentences. Four children are convicted of rape (one is
serving a sentence of ten years), one of manslaughter, and another of
attempted murder. One child is held on a murder charge.
The task of simultaneously holding and caring for 14 and 15 year olds
serving short sentences with older children serving very long sentences
and with one or two awaiting trial is very demanding. Their safety,
security and the prevention of their escape requires expert and
knowledgeable handling, together with lots of activity to occupy young
impetuous minds and consume their energy. This is what used to be
known as dynamic security and it’s practised well at Rainsbrook.
There was a wide awareness among the children of the Ofsted Report
and they assumed that I was from Ofsted, the YJB or some other non-
defined official body, and that I was visiting with a view to closing
Rainsbrook. The general view from the children was that Rainsbrook was
“okay” or “fine”. There were inevitable grumbles about the boredom of

4. life on the living units but children were consistently positive about the
staff – “if you treat them okay then they treat you okay too” and were
enthusiastic about education. A number of the children have previously
experienced detention either in other STCs or in secure children’s
homes. Rainsbrook was, in almost every case, compared favourably with
earlier spells of custody or securecare.
It was clear to me that children felt generally safe, due in no small part
to the constant presence of unit staff who, as well as accompanying
them to education and other activities, take the children to the dining
room and dine with them, eating exactly the same food. The food, which
I also ate, is fine and although there were some protests about its
monotony, the sizes of the portions consumed by most children told its
own story. There were some complaints about healthcare. One child
thought he should be having faster access to a psychiatrist. Another felt
it unreasonable to wait for a few hours before seeing a nurse to obtain
some paracetomol to treat a headache. But what I saw of the nursing,
what I heard from staff in children’s reviews, and the fact that a nurse
visits each living unit twice a day, assured me that care was at least as
good - and almost certainly considerably better - than that which most
of these children would receive in the community. It may not be entirely
professional for nurses to refer to individual children as sweetheart, butI
found that rather reassuring.
A Muslim child claimed to have had a poor experience at Rainsbrook
during an earlier sentence, including experiencing intolerance from
other boys about his faith. He spoke positively about how things were
improved on this sentence and the fact that staff did not allow other
children to be critical of his attendance at Friday prayers or to make
provocativereferences to terrorism.
These are not cowed children. I don’t remember being in a custodial
setting for children or young people where children presented so
confidently. In particular the boys - who often respond to custody by
being monosyllabic in the presence of visitors – were always keen to
speak and frequently greeted me, and members of staff, by a cheerful
shakeof the hand.
Girls and the Mother and Baby unit

5. Rainsbrook has primarily cared for boys since its opening in 1999 and
the sharp increase in the number of girls held after the closure of
Hassockfield STC will have provided a challenge for many of the staff.
Young girls in custody often need more sensitive management than boys
and a worrying proportion harm themselves. That was certainly the case
with at least one girl recently (whose file I examined). She harmed
herself prolifically and seriously by cutting until she was sectioned under
the Mental Health Act a few days before her discharge. But staff seem to
have coped with her professionally and compassionately.
I found the girls to be content with their lot and although one or two
suggested to me that their location, in the Midlands, meant that
parental visits were impossible, I don’t believe that to be the case.
Indeed, I was impressed by staff attempts to persuade parents to visit
one of the girls, by ensuring them that costs for the journey from the
northeastwould not fall on them. Sadly thoseefforts were unsuccessful.
One girl and her six-week-old son was living in the mother and baby unit.
I spent some time with her and with staff on the unit. I was very
impressed with her care, and the emphasis on securing decent release
and accommodation arrangements both for her and her infant. When I
revisited the centre, a week or so after my original visit, this child was
being discharged and some staff had come in from leave to wish her and
her baby well. I consider her care to have been simply exemplary
providing a single, but nevertheless fine example, of how custody, very
occasionally, can be used to give a child a fresh and improved start in
life.
Education
Education is at the heart of the regime. I have rarely seen a penal
establishment where it is delivered with such energy and enthusiasm.
On my second morning I stood on the central green (between the living
units) and saw the children being escorted briskly to the school from
8.30. Impressively, the Education Manager stands in the centre ticking
off every child and challenging any non-appearance. This explains why
attendance at schoolis so very high (as Ofsted acknowledged).
Children attend in their house groups and are accompanied in the
classroom by one of the house staff – who is encouraged to participate

6. in the learning and to help individual children.
Educational outcomes are impressive. In 2014, and for each month they
lived in Rainsbrook, children improved their reading age on average by
three and a half months and their spelling age by almost five months.
24% of children discharged had a maths age of 13 years or above, three
times the proportion of children who enter Rainsbrook.
In 2014, children achieved almost 1900 qualifications including 34 GCSE
passes, 235 Entry Level Certificates in a variety of subjects, 94 Royal
Society of Public Health Level Food Hygiene Qualifications and 325 Adult
Literacy and Numeracy qualifications. For a population of only around 70
children in any one week, but with many of them staying at Rainsbrook
for relatively shortperiods, this is highly commendable.
The challenge of educating children who very frequently have deficits in
literacy and numeracy, and who in many cases will have been
permanently or temporarily excluded from school, cannot be over-
estimated. It is hard to see what more might reasonably be achieved.
Education at Rainsbrook is first class.
Use of Force
Although those held at Rainsbrook are children they occasionally need
to be restrained for their own safety and sometimes for the safety of
other children. The key is to do everything possible to avoid the need for
physical restraint. Staff are well trained, and proud of their expertise, in
using what are known as de-escalation techniques. The Inspectorate felt
that restraint procedures (known as MMPR) were well managed and
with effective scrutiny. But they argued that such scrutiny focused too
much on the holds used and too little on the “events, contexts and
behaviours” that preceded the use of restraint.
The principal arena for such consideration is the weekly use of force
meeting. As well as examining the restraint incidents themselves, the
meeting I observed concentrated very much on whether the use of
restraints might have been avoided. For example, the YJB monitor
probed whether the weekly house competition, which is used to
incentivise good behavior, might have inadvertently been the cause of
one incident.

7. There was much evidence to convince me that restraints were only used
when absolutely necessary. Indeed staff were proud of their ability not
to have to resort to them. And, as I witnessed from CCTV recordings,
when force was used, it was demonstrably to protect the individual child
or other children.
Barnardo’s IndependentChildren’s Advocate
Barnardo’s are commissioned directly by the Youth Justice Board to
provide an advocacy service for children at Rainsbrook, acting as an
independent source of advice and support, helping children to make
complaints where necessary, and assisting with preparations for release.
They deal with children in private and on an entirely confidential basis.
For the last three years, and after every occasion that a child is
restrained, he or sheis interviewed by someonefromBarnardo’s.
The impressive manager of the advocacy service, Liz Saunders, is an ex
journalist and lawyer, and has worked at Rainsbrook for ten years. She
believed that Rainsbrook had hit something of a trough two years ago
when new arrangements for restraining children were introduced. She
believed that the new arrangements had initially sapped staff
confidence and satisfaction at work and that this had communicated
itself to the children. But she believed things had improved since then,
had substantially recovered by the time of the inspection, and had
continued to improve since.
She told me that the main issues that the children brought to Barnardo’s
were to do with release, most often relating to accommodation on
release. She told me that children trust the staff, the integrity of the
complaints processes, and some were worried that Rainsbrook might
close and requirethem to be placed elsewhere.
The advocacy manager did not meet any of the Ofsted Inspectors
although she spent thirty minutes with one of the Prison Inspectors. Of
the Inspectorates’ conclusion that Rainsbrook was inadequate and
children unsafeshe told me “this is not the place I know”.
The Youth Justice Board monitor

8. I was equally impressed with well-established Youth Justice Board
monitor and with her intimate knowledge of the establishment, staff
and individual children. I was in no doubt of her willingness to be
resolute in protecting the treatment of children.
She was insistent that Rainsbrook was not an unsafe establishment. Nor
did she believe that it was unsafe at the time of the inspection. But she
told me that Inspectors explained they were not only interested in the
here and now when they visited in February, but were reviewing the
previous year and the number and gravity of serious incidents in 2014
had to be reflected in their verdict.
Incidents during 2014
There were some very troubling incidents in 2014. But, serious as some
of the incidents might be, I believe one can take some reassurance from
the YJB and G4S response.
My experience with custodial institutions is that one must always be
aware of the potential for the behaviour of staff – even those considered
reliable and caring – to deteriorate unacceptably. All closed institutions
are proneto this. But there is a particular danger in custodial settings.
Ten staff were dismissed from Rainsbrook in the thirteen-month period
leading up to the inspection. Three were dismissed for dishonesty. One
was dismissed after a drug test proved positive, and six were dismissed
for issues relating to the treatment of children. Significantly, only two of
these ten dismissals arose from a child’s complaint. The others were
either detected through managerial monitoring of CCTV, or were as a
result of other members of staff reporting the behaviour of their
colleagues. I believe that the YJB can take encouragement fromthat.
I have looked at the history of the incidents where dismissal was
prompted by the poor treatment of children. In a couple of instances
dismissal was arguably harsh. A training assistant who was play fighting
with a child – he piggy-backed on the child – was apparently popular
with children, and the child involved persistently declined to complain
about the incident, even after leaving Rainsbrook. That member of staff
might have considered his dismissal to be harsh. Another training

9. assistant, being confident that her relationship with a troubled and self
harming child was good enough to allow her – against instructions – to
let the child drink from a porcelain mug (which the girl then used to cut
herself) was almost certainly well intentioned, and a final warning might
have been appropriatefor her.
One incident was disgusting and involved a degrading assault by one
child on another. Staff were not involved in the assault. But two training
assistants were present and failed to intervene. I am disappointed that
the police declined to prosecute the members of staff.
The assault, which took place on December 23, was not reported by the
victim to G4S, the YJB or Barnardo’s. But two weeks later, a training
assistant on another living unit reported that she had heard rumours
from other children that something degrading had happened to a boy
before Christmas. A considerable amount of CCTV material was
reviewed. The assault - which took place in a cell - was not revealed. But
the presence of two members of staff, watching something in a cell in
which two children were present, was identified. One member of staff
resigned when challenged and the other was dismissed.
A second event, occurring in March 2014, seems also to have influenced
the Inspectorates’ assessment. This involved a failure promptly to take a
child with an injured wrist to outside hospital when that was the clinical
requirement. The Inspectorates’ view is that the decision not to send the
child to hospital was taken by the STC Director personally. The then
Director, a qualified social worker, vehemently denies that. An
investigation carried out by a retired Ofsted Inspector and independent
social worker, not in the employ of G4S, attributed the cause of the
delay primarily to a breakdown in communications. He was unable to
establish whether the Director intentionally delayed hospital treatment,
but he concluded that to have been unlikely.
I interviewed the ex-Director specifically on this point. It is impossible to
be certain what happened. So I find Ofsted’s certainty about his personal
culpability – reflected in a decision last week to ask G4S to refer him to
the Health and Care Professions Council - puzzling. On balanceI consider
that it is extremely unlikely that he would intentionally ignore clear
medical advice and refuse to send a child to hospital, not least because
to do so would have opened him up to potential dismissal and the end

10. of his social work career. But also the evidence suggests – as the YJB
monitor put it to me – that children are taken to outside hospital
without hesitation. The statistics support that: in the year leading up to
the inspection, children were taken to outside hospital on 189 occasions.
On 50 of those occasions this was in responseto a perceived emergency.
Conclusion
I understand entirely why the Inspectorates’ view of Rainsbrook may
have been negatively affected by some of the incidents in 2014,
particularly the degradation of one child by another. I share Ofsted’s
horror about the failure, on that day, to protect a child. But that
incident, and the other serious incidents which led to staff dismissals,
took place before the inspection and had been, or were being dealt with
by G4S or the YJB. None of the incidents were discovered during the
inspection, as some media coveragesuggested.
The Inspectorate conclusion was that in February of this year, at the
time of the inspection, Rainsbrook was an inadequate institution and an
unsafe place for children. I do not believe that. My assessment is that it
is an institution in which some very challenging children are treated
overwhelmingly well. The staff group, drawn from many professional
backgrounds, is professional. Many of them are genuinely caring. The
well-qualified management group is experienced, able and visible. In
their interactions with children they lead by example.
The institution may be a better establishment now than at the time of
the inspection. But I doubt that any such improvement has been
significant enough to explain the discrepancy between the
Inspectorates’ conclusion and mine.
Rainsbrook is not without its flaws. I think that there needs to be rather
more challenging of the children and an attempt to get them to accept
more responsibility for their offending. During my visitI heard a little too
much of peer pressure as an explanation for a child’s offences. One
particular child complained to me (and the YJB monitor) that he wasn’t
getting a swift enough appointment with a psychiatrist and that he
needed more offence related offending behaviour therapy. That may be
true, but he needed to be reminded of his own culpability for very
serious offences.

11. In their commendable keenness to reduce the likelihood of re-offending
some children appeared to receive a barrage of short-term interventions
such as anger management courses. I suggest that the YJB need to
ensure that all those interventions have an evidential base and are
sequenced properly.
Finally, and most importantly, there needs to be open and thorough
discussion with all staff about some of issues last year which led to so
many dismissals. In particular, the degrading nature of the December
assault, and the shocking failure in care that represented, needs to be
discussed. That is not because I believe that such an event is likely to
happen again, but because I’d like to see staff angered by the damage
such a failure caused to the Centre’s reputation and to their personal
reputations.
My test in visiting places of custody for over thirty years is to reflect
about how I’d feel if my son or daughter were incarcerated there. In
Rainsbrook’s case, I would consider him or her to be safe and to be
generally well treated. However despicable the actions of the staff
dismissed in January, Rainsbrook is an institution where children are
treated kindly. And with many of the children, tangible progress is made
toward their rehabilitation.
That is not to suggest that the Inspectorates’ recommendations for
improvement should not be accepted. They are uncontroversial and I
take very little issue with them. But I don’t believe the inadequacies
those improvements address, mean that Rainsbrook is, or was in
February, an unsafeplace for children.
Sir Martin Narey
July 2015