Cookham Wood: 'Shocking' violence at youth prison, report says

Children armed themselves with hundreds of homemade weapons at a jail where "violence was rife", according to a watchdog report.

Cookham Wood young offender institution near Rochester, Kent, was placed in emergency measures in April.

Detailed findings of the inspection, published on Tuesday, set out how weapon making was "widespread" at the facility, which holds 77 boys.

It said 228 weapons were found in the six months before the inspection.

This was a much higher number compared to similar establishments, the report added.

Security checks were "inadequate" and nearly a quarter of the boys said they felt unsafe, it said.

Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor was so concerned by the "appalling" conditions he discovered at the Kent prison in April that he demanded urgent improvements from Justice Secretary Alex Chalk.

At the time the watchdog told how boys were found in solitary confinement for "days on end", including two being held in such conditions for more than 100 days.

The use of solitary confinement was to "manage conflict" between inmates in the wake of many children fashioning makeshift weapons from kettles and other metal objects to protect themselves, the report said.

Inspectors also found the facility in "poor overall condition" with dirty living units and broken equipment.

Mr Taylor's team found the conditions at Cookham Wood had deteriorated and were now of "considerable concern".

Members of the 360-strong team of staff were described as "demoralised" and "frightened", with some seeming to have "given up" and no longer even wearing the correct uniform to work.

Some of the 24 senior bosses "stayed out of sight in their offices", according to the watchdog.

As he called for "urgent, concerted and long-term commitment" from prison leaders to improve standards, Mr Taylor said: "These findings would be deeply troubling in any prison, but given that Cookham Wood holds children, they were completely unacceptable.

"As a result, I had no choice but to write to the secretary of state immediately after the inspection and invoke the urgent notification process."

The Prison Reform Trust described the report as "shocking" and said it revealed a "failure of leadership at the highest levels of the youth justice system".

In May the government approved a series of urgent measures in a crackdown on weapons at Cookham Wood.

Search teams using dogs would be deployed to hunt for weapons, it announced.

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