A damning inspection report published today (3 September 2025) reveals that children “have been and remain at risk of harm”. At the time of the inspection – 21-25 July 2025 – there were 66 children detained in Oakhill secure training centre in Milton Keynes, a child prison run by G4S. There were 59 boys and 7 girls. Inspectors were unable to say how many children had been harmed or put at risk.
At the end of July, Ofsted, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons and the Care Quality Commission issued an urgent notification – the highest form of intervention available to the inspectorates when they have grave concerns about a child or adult prison. Today’s published inspection report reveals a catalogue of failures, many of them contravening legal protections and child safeguarding rules:
- Since November 2024, 24 members of staff have been suspended due to concerns about their treatment of children. The prison’s director has been suspended, one of two deputy directors has been dismissed, and the other suspended.
- Failures by the G4S safeguarding team have led to staff continuing to work with children “when it appears to be inappropriate given the gravity of the allegations made”.
- G4S has not always reported child protection concerns to Milton Keynes Council, or has delayed such reports – on one occasion for seven weeks.
- Even when concerns were referred to the local authority, matters were not always investigated as they should have been.
- Some children had endured long periods isolated from their peers. Safeguards were not consistently followed meaning that managers could not be sure that this isolation ended when it legally should have done.
- The health of some children has been seriously jeopardised – examples include a suicidal child not offered mental health support for 8 days; another child with very profound mental health difficulties was not seen by a mental health specialist for 12 days after arriving at the prison; a child was given two of the same medications one after the other; and a child with a severe nut and shellfish allergy was around visitors who had not all been told to avoid bringing nuts into the prison.
- Most children told inspectors they were not given enough to eat. The timings of meals meant that children went for long periods without food.
- Staff were using the ‘inverted wrist hold’ pain-inducing technique as a form of restraint – prohibited by government rules since February 2024.
- Staff shortages meant children’s time with their families was severely curtailed. One child got to see their family for just 15 minutes during a visit that was meant to last for 60. Families often travelled long distances to see children.
- Some communal areas were “very dirty” and inspectors described the main kitchen as “unhygienic”.
- There was very little for children to do in the evening. The new director had purchased board games shortly before this latest inspection.
- The independent advocacy service and the chaplaincy service had each “failed to identify or escalate concerns about children’s living units or about staffing levels”.
- Independent monitors, with clearly defined statutory roles, had also failed to ensure children were safe and properly cared for.
Whistleblower contacts Article 39 about Oakhill secure training centre – September 2021
At the end of September 2021, a whistleblower contacted Article 39 with a number of very serious allegations relating to child protection and children’s safety at G4S-run Oakhill secure training centre. They said they came to us because they were not confident that their very significant child protection concerns were being taken seriously by G4S, the Ministry of Justice’s Youth Custody Service, the local authority designated officer or the prison’s advocacy service.
We wrote to the local authority responsible for investigating significant harm, copying in the inspectorates and the national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel. We subsequently wrote to the Justice Secretary calling for a judicial inquiry and assurances over the immediate steps taken to protect children. We also wrote to the G4S director of the prison asking her to pass on letters to children informing them of their right to seek legal help.
Following our action, an inspection was undertaken in early October 2021, after which an urgent notification was issued.
Overall full inspection judgements across the past five years:
- 2025 – inadequate
- 2024 – inadequate
- 2023 – requires improvement to be good
- 2022 – requires improvement to be good
- 2021 – inadequate
