The image of a girl in a children’s prison being pinned down and stripped by male officers, not once but on two separate occasions, beggars belief (Girl at YOI Wetherby was twice stripped by male officers, watchdog says, 5 March). This is a horrific story that cannot be ignored. The “highly vulnerable” girl with complex needs, we are told by the chief inspector of prisons, was routinely self-harming, yet no plan was in place for female staff to be available.
Put bluntly, a bad situation was made worse by imprisonment, where those responsible for a teenage girl’s care put her in increased harm’s way. This is a child in need of support, not traumatisation and wholly inappropriate treatment in a prison. The idea that a vulnerable girl in distress faces force and degrading trauma as a means of “protection” should shock us to our core. It triggers flashbacks of the strip-search incident in a school with Child Q.
