Home office minister Paul Goggins rapped Youth Offending Teams over the knuckles for resisting custody for some young offenders, writes Maria Ahmed in London.

The correctional services minister warned Yots at the annual Youth Justice Board conference in London that a failure to consider custodial placements for young offenders undermined their whole credibility.

Goggins insisted that prison should remain a last resort, but he said some Yots were over-using community sentences.

Despite a reduction in the numbers of children in custody towards the end of last year, there was a 10 per cent increase in the number of children being held in prison in the first three months of this year.

At the time, chair of the YJB Rod Morgan attributed the rise to breaches of antisocial behaviour orders.