Lords reject death inquiry bid

The House of Lords has ruled against a public inquiry into the death of a teenager who died at Shropshire’s young offenders institution.

Joseph Scholes, 16, committed suicide at Stoke Heath YOI, near Market Drayton, in 2002, just 10 days into a 24-month detention and training order for attempted robbery.

His mother Yvonne has been calling for a public inquiry to look at whether the sentence violated human rights laws.

However, the Lords have rejected a public inquiry bid.

Previously a review of the effectiveness of procedures to safeguard vulnerable young people in custody was ordered by the Home Office after the coroner had raised concerns at the inquest in 2004.

But ministers rejected the coroner’s call for a public inquiry - a decision which was upheld by the High Court in January last year, after Mrs Scholes, of Meliden, near Prestatyn, North Wales, launched a legal challenge.

Joseph had previously made an attempt on his life and had harmed himself.

The Home Office had also rejected a recommendation of an official report into the death of the teenager which called for the phone calls of vulnerable youngsters being held in young offenders institutions to be monitored.

This was made after finding that Joseph Scholes warned he might harm himself in a phone conversation with his mother on the eve of his death in March 2002.

However, the Home Office has said that listening in to inmates’ calls would breach laws designed to protect privacy and may also fall foul of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Mrs Scholes has said the battle would probably end up in the European courts.