SECURITY profiteer G4S announced yesterday the sell-off of its children’s services in Britain, including a youth prison where staff were alleged to have bullied children.

The decision came a month after five men working at the company’s Medway Secure Training Centre in Kent were arrested on suspicion of assault and child neglect.

Despite revenues of around £40 million a year, G4S said it was ditching children’s services “in line with a continuing review of [its] business portfolio.”

A spokesman added that there had been “a number of expressions of interest” in G4S’s 13 children’s homes and two secure training centres.

“There is now an opportunity developing to close the secure training centres down completely,” said Howard League for Penal Reform campaigns director Andrew Neilson.

“These centres are a failed model and this wise withdrawal from the market by G4S should not be followed up by new private security companies coming in to replace them, with dubious track records abroad in the treatment of people in custody.”

But the government was quick to dispel Mr Neilson’s hopes, with a Ministry of Justice spokesman confirming that there would be no change to the running of the secure training centres.

“G4S have committed to ensuring there is a smooth transition to new providers,” he said.

“We will work with G4S and the Youth Justice Board to make sure that happens.”

A third G4S youth prison in Northamptonshire is already undergoing transfer to a new provider, rehabilitation expert MTC Novo.

“It is about time that G4S gave up these contracts to run the secure training centres at Medway and Oakhill,” said Labour shadow criminal justice minister Wayne David.

“Labour has previously called for all G4S facilities to be put into special measures, unlike [Justice Secretary] Michael Gove, who has consistently dragged his feet.

“The government need to ensure that whoever takes over the running of these centres is a fit and proper operator that treats the safety of the children concerned as an absolute priority and that the shocking failures we witnessed at Medway STC are never repeated.”