THE inquest into the death of 14-year-old Adam Rickwood in Hassockfield Secure Training Centre on 8th August 2004 will open on Monday 10 January 2011.
Adam Rickwood was the youngest child ever to die in penal custody.
He was found hanging in his room hours after being physically restrained.
The inquest into Adam’s death will, among other issues, scrutinise:
• The circumstances in which restraint can be used against children and the type of restraint that can be used, in particular techniques that are designed to cause pain.
• What was the physical and psychological impact on Adam of the restraint used?
• Whether the force used against Adam contributed to his death.
• The role of private company Serco and those with responsibility to supervise and monitor them including the Youth Justice Board and Commission for Social Care Inspectorate.
This inquest reignites concerns over the treatment of children by the criminal justice system.
Adam’s death and the issue of both when force can be used and the deliberate use of painful force by staff against children has attracted substantial parliamentary and public disquiet and led to calls for a radical overhaul of the way the state treats children in conflict with the law.
The inquest is scheduled to last three weeks and will begin by hearing on the first day from Adam’s mother.
Evidence will also be heard from, amongst others, the officers involved in restraining Adam; senior management of the Youth Justice Board including the previous chief executive Ellie Roy; and Serco, the private company that runs Hassockfield.
The family will be represented by INQUEST Lawyers Group members Rajiv Menon from Garden Court Chambers instructed by Mark Scott of Bhatt Murphy solicitors.
The fresh inquest was ordered into Adam’s death by the High Court in January 2009.
In a five-week inquest in 2008, a jury had found that he had deliberately taken his own life.
But the boy’s mother, Carol Pounder, took the case to the High Court because the coroner had refused to rule on the legality of physical restraint methods used on Adam hours before his death.
In his January 2009 ruling, Mr Justice Blake said the force used on Adam was clearly unlawful.
Ordering a fresh inquest, Blake added: ‘A proper inquiry into factors that might have contributed to Adam’s death and formed a material circumstance as to how he came by his death, required consideration of whether the staff of the centre were operating in accordance with the law in the use of force on the children ssigned to their care.’
The court had heard that Adam killed himself just six hours after being forcibly restrained by four adult guards and subjected to the ‘nose distraction technique’, in which pressure is applied to the nose with the deliberate intention of causing pain.
