UK: a child prisoner with ADHD spent 22 hours a day in a cell, for 55 days – and he’s not the only one

When my client, ‘AB’, called the Howard League for Penal Reform’s legal advice line last year, it was immediately clear from his voice that he was miserable. At the time, he was 15. He has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). And he was locked alone in his cell in Feltham prison for more than 22 hours a day. That lasted for 55 days.

During this time AB received no education and had no access to gym, psychological intervention or any purposeful activity. He was not allowed to have contact with other children. He was only allowed out of his cell each day for a call, shower and exercise – alone.

40 calls in 12 months¶

The Howard League is aware of many more children like AB who spend periods of isolation in prison. We received more than 40 such calls in the 12 months to March this year.

A prison inspection report on Feltham, at the time that AB was held there in these conditions, found that a quarter of boys were on a restricted regime that meant they were unlocked from their cells for less than an hour each day.

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, in a report published last year, had this to say about children in Cookham Wood prison, in Kent: “The delegation interviewed one juvenile who spent 23.5 hours a day lying on his bed, under his covers, blankly looking at a TV screen, talking and meeting no one. It also met a 15-year-old who had been held in these conditions for several weeks and he had no information about how much longer he would be held under such a restricted regime.”

Inhumane and degrading treatment¶

The watchdog concluded that holding children in such conditions amounted to “inhuman and degrading treatment”. The British Courts, however, are yet to accept this. That will be put to the test in November, when the Howard League’s case of AB returns to the Court of Appeal. The “physical isolation of individuals who are confined to their cells for 22 or more hours a day without meaningful human contact” is internationally accepted as “solitary confinement”. This definition is found in the Istanbul Statement on the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement, adopted by the International Psychological Trauma Symposium in 2007. It was applied by the UK Supreme Court in the leading case on the use of segregation on prisoners.

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