“ROTTEN to the core” was the verdict of Frances Crook, head of the world’s oldest penal reform charity, who was left in tears yesterday after watching a BBC Panorama investigation into child abuse at a privately run borstal youth jail. 

Ms Cook, the Howard League chief executive for 20 years, said that what was shown going on at Medway Secure Training Centre was “one of the most upsetting things” she had ever seen and demanded immediate action to shut it down.

Security firm G4S runs the institution in Rochester, Kent, which holds 56 children aged 12 to 17, most of them boys.