A former Medway Council officer has said it is ‘foolish’ to think children are no longer being abused at secure training centres.

The comments were made at a two-week inquiry as part of a children in custodial institutions investigation sponsored by the government.

Sharon Rollinson was brought in following a BBC Panorama investigation which alleged prison officers used excess force on inmates at Medway Secure Training Centre (STC) in January 2016.

The centre is home to youngsters aged 12-18 who have been sentenced or remanded to custody.

As Medway Council’s assistant local authority designated officer, she viewed the footage and worked with police to look into the issue further.

When asked if these problems were confined to a particular time period at the centre, she said: “I personally think we would be foolish to think things are not happening now to children in those environments.

“My experience ended a year ago and when I left that role, I had no reassurances changes had been made to the level that we need to ensure those children were safe.”

Jonathan French, current governor of Medway STC, said the whole system had been reformed since he arrived in January 2017 and there is a new focus on training staff regularly.

It has also invested in CCTV with 70 cameras installed in areas that were not covered before, including the kitchen and stairwells.

He told the panel: “Staff at Medway are quite clear on what went wrong or what happened before...in terms of the actions of small numbers of individuals...but people didn’t report what they saw that led to what happened and it led to their professional names being dragged through the mud as much as the people who were carrying out those acts.

"We have made good progress. We have got affirmation of that from Ofsted and we’re going in the right direction but there’s still a lot to do.”

The full transcripts can be found here.​