MEDWAY'S privately-run centre for young offenders has been fined nearly £1 million by the Home Office over the past five years, it has been revealed.

The Medway Secure Training Centre, which houses young offenders between the ages of 12 and 16, has been fined £910,874 during that period for a variety of reasons.

The centre, in Sir Evelyn Road, Rochester, received the majority of the fines in its first year of operation after launching in April 1998, according to Home Office figures.

Fines were slapped on the centre for non-availability of beds and the non-provision of essential services.

Inmates were not being referred to a doctor on entering the centre and failures in the cleaning schedule meant some of the trainees were not being given clean sheets.

A riot in July 1998 and the escape of two inmates the same year also resulted in fines from the Youth Justice Board.

The two other privately-run prisons for young offenders Ð Rainsbrook in Northamptonshire and Hassockfield Centre in County Durham Ð were fined £155,000 and £74,000 respectively.

Medway Secure Training Centre has been dubbed the Medway Hilton for the so-called "cushy" life its 70-odd inmates lead.

Landscape gardens, en-suite showers and toilet facilities plus private telephone lines are all on offer to the offenders.

It has been no stranger to controversy since it was launched in 1998.There were 14 disturbances in its first year and two thirds of the 100 staff left in the first two years.

Plans for riot control had to be drawn up after a major disturbance in June 1998.

But in 2002 the Social Services Inspectorate praised the centre, once branded an expensive failure, for "further significant improvements in the quality of services provided to young people to help them avoid committing further offences once they are released" .

Medway Secure Training Centre is run by Rebound ECD - owned by Group 4 Falck Global Solutions.

A spokesman for the company said: "The fines last year were for lack of availability after we expanded from a 44-bed to a 76-bed operation. The earlier reports stem from the fact Medway was the first of the secure centres and experienced some difficulties in the early stages.

"But we have a new management team and a new director and everything is going well at present."

A spokesman for the Youth Justice Board said: "The whole idea of having fines is because we insist on the highest standards. But most of these fines came in Medway's first year of operation and the centre is a lot better and a lot more stable now."