A SENIOR official said he only became aware physical restraints were being routinely used to get young inmates to obey orders through a report carried out after the death of a teenager in a secure training unit.

Peter Mant, the contracts manager of the Youth Justice Board, was giving evidence at the inquest of 14-year-old Adam Rickwood, who became the youngest person to die in a British penal institution in recent times, when he was found hanged in his cell at the Serco-run Hassockfield Secure Training Centre, near Medomsley, County Durham.

Mr Mant said: “The report, (taken) from conversations, does not reflect the information we were getting from our monitors, day in and day out.”

Hours before Adam’s body was found in August 2004, the teenager, from Burnley, Lancashire, disobeyed an order to return to his cell and was forcibly carried to his room by four officers.

The inquest in Easington has placed the focus on the use of what is known as Physical Control in Care (PCC) in secure training centres.

Assistant deputy coroner Jeremy Freedman pointed out to Mr Mant that the contract with Serco tied staff at Hassockfield to rules which forbade the use of force merely to obtain compliance.

And the contract echoed secure training centre rules which specified that PCC could only be used to prevent an escape or an inmate harming himself or others.

Mr Mant said that, in his view, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act allowing “reasonable force to maintain good order and discipline” overrode these rules.

Mr Freedman said a report compiled after the death of Adam into the use of PCC had made it clear that it was being used simply to enforce staff instructions at secure training centres.

The hearing continues.