YOUNG offenders are to once again be sent to a privately run youth prison at the centre of allegations of abuse and mistreatment.

The Youth Justice Board (YJB) stopped placing youngsters at the Medway Secure Training Centre in Rochester, Kent, in the wake of a damning BBC Panorama exposé.

Undercover footage from the G4S-run centre appeared to show staff mistreating and abusing young inmates and boasting about the use of inappropriate restraint techniques on children at the facility.

“Medway remains a failed institution for a failed sentence — the detention and training order, which jails children for short spells,” said Howard League for Penal Reform campaigns leader Andrew Neilson.

“With a radical youth justice review ongoing we hope that this move is a temporary stop gap before more fundamental change.”

Other allegations included claims that staff tried to conceal their actions by ensuring they were carried out in areas not covered by CCTV cameras.

But yesterday, following independent visits by Ofsted and HM Inspectorate of Prisons, the YJB decided to resume placing some young people at Medway.

YJB chief executive Lin Hinnigan said young people would be placed at Medway “in consultation with the Youth Offending Team and the family of the young person, on an individual basis.”

It is understood that none of the agencies which have visited Medway since the Panorama investigation have raised any safeguarding concerns.

Increased monitoring by the YJB has also apparently not uncovered new evidence of mistreatment by staff at the unit, which houses youngsters aged 12 to 17.