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THE legality of a child prisoner having been kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day for 55 consecutive days will be opposed in the Court of Appeal in London tomorrow.
The challenge is being mounted by a legal team from the Howard League for Penal Reform on behalf of a youngster who was in custody, named in court only as AB.
Judges will have to decide during the two-day hearing whether the way AB was locked up alone for 23 hours a day in Feltham Prison without receiving an education had been “inhuman treatment.”
In July 2017 the High Court ruled that the boy’s treatment was unlawful because it was against prison rules.
But the court stopped short of accepting that keeping him in isolation for more than 22 hours a day was “degrading and inhuman treatment.”
The case made against the Secretary of State for Justice will be heard at a time of growing concern about the use of solitary confinement around the world, especially the use of prolonged solitary confinement in the youth justice system.
Howard League for Penal Reform chief executive Frances Crook said: “This is an important case … Every year the Howard League receives many calls from children locked in their cells for hours and days on end.”
Last April the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health issued a joint statement condemning the practice.
In the US, the District Court for New York granted an injunction requiring the immediate cessation of 23-hour solitary confinement of children.
The court referred to expert evidence that “solitary confinement perpetuates, worsens, or even in some cases precipitates mental health concerns that can lead to long-term and often permanent changes in adolescent brain development.”