High Court to hear legal challenge over child’s solitary confinement

Dan Squires QC, with the Howard League for Penal Reform, is representing a boy, identified as AB in court documents, who has been locked in his cell for more than 23 hours per day in Feltham prison.  During the short periods out of his cell, he has been permitted no contact with any other child. It is being argued that the practice of subjecting children to solitary confinement is inhuman and degrading treatment, banned by a number of international instruments, and should cease. The High Court has granted permission for the judicial review claim to proceed.