A LEADING UK organisation on penal reform has been invited by Health Minister Stuart Syvret to undertake an independent review of child custody issues in Jersey.

The Howard League for Penal Reform, the oldest penal reform charity in the UK, has been asked by the controversial Senator to look into the way that the Island has dealt with child welfare and protection matters. The invitation comes a day after claims were revealed in national media by a ‘whistleblower’ that children’s centre Greenfields allegedly operated a system named Grand Prix until last October under which children could be locked up in isolation for the first 24 hours after being admitted to the centre. The claims were made to the Times, the Guardian and social work publication Community Care by former Greenfields manager Simon Bellwood, who is claiming unfair dismissal from his position. And a Howard League solicitor publicly questioned in the national media articles whether the Grand Prix regime would have been illegal in the the UK.