News

Two more teenage suicides in custody Two 18-year-old prisoners have hanged themselves at Reading young offender institution in eight days. They became the fifth and sixth young offenders to have taken their own lives in custody in as many months.

Allan Blake died on 3 July and Liam Ritson on 26 June. The incidents follow the suicides of Karl Lewis, 18, at Stoke Heath YOI in January, Gareth Price, 16, at Lancaster Farms YOI in January, Lee Crisp, 19, at Brinsford YOI in February and Steven Jones, 21, at Preston prison in March.

Last month, the mother of 16-year-old young offender Joseph Scholes, who committed suicide at Stoke Heath YOI in 2002, won the first round of her legal battle for a public inquiry into his death.