News

Hilton Dawson MP and a group of youth justice campaigners are to lobby parliamentary candidates about child deaths in custody in the run up to the general election.

Dawson this week told groups including Nacro and The Children's Society that he would table an early day motion on the issue.

Twenty-eight children have died in custody since 1990. Three deaths occurred in the past 12 months, including the youngest ever recorded case, 14-year-old Adam Rickwood.

Speaking at a parliamentary debate, Dawson told prisons minister Paul Goggins: "We know what happens to social workers in cases in the community where children die at the hands of parents or carers, but it seems there is little concern about children who have committed offences who die in our prisons."

Meanwhile, a Nacro report published this week renews calls for the government to urgently look at alternatives to prison.