Officers convicted of abusing young prisoners

FIVE OFFICERS have been convicted of physical abuse on young prisoners at a detention centre following one of the UK’s biggest police investigations of its kind, it can now be reported.

Durham Police spoke to 1,676 former inmates of Medomsley Detention Centre, near Consett, about the abusive treatment and beatings they endured from the 1960s to its closure in 1988.

Following a series of trials at Teesside Crown Court, it can now be reported that five former staff members have been convicted of offences including misconduct in a public office after jurors were told much of the violence was “for the enjoyment of the officers”.

Judge Howard Crownson lifted reporting restrictions on the hearings after the verdicts were returned in the last of three trials.

One young prisoner was beaten up by the officer in charge of physical training when he tried to tell him that another officer – later jailed for sexual abuse – had raped him in the kitchens.

The same officer threw rocks at another prisoner causing him to fall in the gym and damage vertebrae, and another victim of a different guard was forced to remove his underwear and “bunny hop” to the showers.

Successive juries were told how a favoured device of some who worked at the centre, which housed under-21s who had been given short custodial sentences, was to ask new entries their name, and then punch or kick them when they failed to add “Sir” in their responses.

The officers involved in the abuse were brought to justice after Durham Police launched Operation Seabrook in 2013 to look into allegations relating to the centre. The officers who are now aged 62 to 74 are due to be sentenced at a later date for a range of offences including misconduct in a public office.

Describing the extent of the illtreatment that some of the young men experienced, prosecutor Jamie Hill QC said: “There was an atmosphere of fear and violence throughout the institution.”