A CARE officer at a secure training centre where a teenager was found hanged told an inquest how he had restrained him only hours before his death.

But Stephen Hodgson told the inquest into the death of Adam Rickwood that he had spoken to the 14-year-old an hour or two after the restraining and said he had appeared "happy".

Adam became the youngest person in Britain to die in custody when he was found hanged at the privately-run Hassockfield Secure Training Centre, near Consett, County Durham, in August 2004.

Mr Hodgson told the inquest, at Chester-le-Street Magistrates' Court yesterday, that he had responded to an alarm and found Adam sitting in a chair in the association area flanked by two members of staff.

He told the hearing: "Adam was quite abusive and was refusing to go to his room. It seemed like a hostile situation."

Members of staff restrained the teenager, during which Mr Hodgson placed him in a headlock, and began carrying him to his room.

But during the incident he decided, after giving two warnings, to use what prison staff term a "nose distraction technique" in which upward pressure is placed on the nose to cause a short pain.

Afterwards, he noticed blood on Adam's nose.

Mr Hodgson told the hearing that, some hours later, he went back to the unit in which Adam was housed, to check that he was all right - and he had seemed fine.

Adam had asked for permission to make a phone call, which Mr Hodgson had given, and he had used the call to ring his solicitor and tell him that he had been hurt by an officer.

Under cross examination by Richard Hermer, representing the teenager's family, Mr Hodgson accepted there were inconsistencies between his evidence and statements he had given to the police and his employers.

Mr Hodgson said: "At that time, I was in shock, and under the circumstances I gave the best possible statement I could."

He added: "There is no way I would hurt a child in custody, a child in our care, that's why I warned him twice. The manual says we are supposed to warn them once, but I did it twice."

The inquest continues.