In June 2007, statutory rules were laid before parliament massively increasing restraint powers in secure training centres. The minister’s written statement eight days later began:

Two inquests were held into the prison death of 14-year-old Adam Rickwood, in 2007 and 2011. The second took place after his mother, Carol Pounder, brought a successful judicial review which ordered that jury members should be given guidance on the lawfulness of the restraint used on her son hours before he hanged himself. The coroner presiding over the first inquest had recommended ‘an urgent review’ of the law relating to restraint in secure training centres following claims by the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and Serco that officers were legally permitted to use restraint to secure good order and discipline, as had been done to Adam. Lawyers acting for Carol Pounder were alerted to the forthcoming change in the law through their correspondence with the YJB and Serco and, alongside campaigners, had been keeping track of new statutory instruments. Going on past form, there was little expectation among campaigners that any revisions to the law would be announced in a fanfare of publicity. It was clearly implausible that the discovered amendment rules originated from the coroner’s advice, as they appeared only a week after ministers received his written recommendations. In any case, the coroner had pressed for a review, not a change in the law. Besides, at the end of the previous month, before the inquest into Adam’s death had concluded, the then chief executive of the YJB, Ellie Roy, wrote a letter to the G4S and Serco directors of secure training centres: