Children left hungry and unsafe at G4S-run secure home
Children have been put at risk, left hungry and subjected to a painful and now prohibited restraint at a G4S secure unit for young people.
A damning OFSTED inspection report into Oakhill Secure Training Centre published on 3 September declares children "have been and remain at risk of harm".
The report states: “There are very serious and systemic failures at Oakhill Secure Training Centre (STC).
“Safeguarding systems are in disarray, with delays by centre staff in notifying the internal safeguarding team of concerns, leaders’ failure to report serious matters to human resources, and/or delays in alerting local authority children’s services and the local authority designated officer.”
An inspection of the facility which houses 66 children, including seven girls, was ordered in July on an urgent notification - the highest intervention available when there are grave concerns about a child or adult prison.
Since November last year, 23 members of staff have been suspended at Oakhill due to concerns about their treatment of children. Following intervention in July the prison’s director has been suspended, one of two deputy directors has been dismissed, and the other suspended.
Inspectors found a suicidal child was not offered mental health support for eight days and another child with very profound mental health difficulties was not seen by a mental health specialist for 12 days after arriving at the prison.
Staff conduct was found to be “of significant concern” and children were separated from other children “for extended periods inappropriately”.
Most children told inspectors they were not given enough to eat. The timings of meals meant that children went for long periods without food. Inspectors noted that “children had not had their hair cared for or cut for some time… some children’s hair was falling out or their plaits becoming matted”.
Staff were found to be using the “inverted wrist hold” pain-inducing technique as a form of restraint – prohibited by government rules since February 2024.
There were failures by the G4S safeguarding team who had not always reported child protection concerns to Milton Keynes Council or delayed such reports – on one occasion for seven weeks.
Even when concerns were referred to the local authority, matters were not always investigated as they should have been, the inspectors found.
Children were not being rehabilitated correctly, with inspectors stating: “Too few interventions are being delivered for children to address the reasons why they are in custody, which is one of the primary functions of an STC.”
The independent advocacy service and the chaplaincy service had each “failed to identify or escalate concerns about children’s living units or about staffing levels”.
Independent monitors, with clearly defined statutory roles, had also failed to ensure children were safe and properly cared for.
Some children went for long periods isolated from their peers. Safeguards were not consistently followed meaning that managers could not be sure that this isolation ended when it legally should have done.
The health of some children was found to have been seriously jeopardised – in addition to mental health concerns a child was given two of the same medications one after the other. And a child with a severe nut and shellfish allergy was exposed to the risk of contamination from visitors.
Staff shortages meant visiting time was shortened. One child got to see their family for just 15 minutes during a visit that was meant to last for an hour. Families often travelled long distances to see children.
Communal areas were described in the report as “very dirty” and the main kitchen as “unhygienic”. There was very little for children to do in the evening. The new director had purchased board games shortly before the latest inspection.
A spokesperson for the children’s rights charity Article 39 said: “At the end of September 2021, a whistleblower contacted Article 39 with a number of very serious allegations relating to child protection and children’s safety at Oakhill.
“They were not confident that their concerns were being taken seriously.
“We wrote to the local authority responsible for investigating significant harm, copying in the inspectorates and the national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel. We subsequently wrote to the Justice Secretary calling for a judicial inquiry.”
Following interventions by the charity, a succession of recent inspections across five years have led to Oakhill being rated as ‘inadequate’ apart from 2022 and 2023, when the facility was assessed as ‘requiring improvement to be good’.
A spokesperson for Oakhill STC said: "The safety and welfare of children at Oakhill STC is our highest priority and we take the Ofsted inspection findings extremely seriously.
"We are working collaboratively with the Youth Custody Service and His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service to develop a robust action plan to address the concerns raised."