Chilling echo of a banned technique

THE investigation’s findings have chilling echoes of the Pindown technique used in children’s homes in Staffordshire in the 1980s.

Children would be deprived of their clothes and shoes and made to wear pyjamas to prevent them absconding.

If they misbehaved they were isolated and locked in Pindown rooms for weeks or months on end, to the extent that some became suicidal.

Many had behavioural problems which would now be diagnosed as autism or ADHD, but they were simply labelled as troublemakers.

A public inquiry in 1991 banned the technique and recommended social services scrutinise the homes more closely.