by Bethany Rielly

THE government’s “cruel” and “extreme” policy of locking up detained children for 23 hours a day is the result of ministers’ “incompetent failure” to control coronavirus, Labour said today. 

Under measures intended to contain the spread of Covid-19, youth detention facilities have been allowed to keep children as young as 12 in their cells for all but 40 minutes a day.

The practice has been described by United Nations torture expert Nils Melzer as “inhumane.”