Joseph Scholes

Joseph Scholes, 16, was a bright, enthusiastic and engaging White boy who loved playing with Lego.

He was given a two-year custodial sentence at a time of heightened public anxiety about 'street crime'. In court, the sentencing judge acknowledged Joseph’s fragile mental ill health.

His custodial sentence proved to be a fatal choice. Weeks after his sixteenth birthday, Joseph died a self-inflicted death in Stoke Heath Young Offenders Institution.

An inquest heard from a number of experts that Joseph should not have been sent to prison in the first place and the jury found that the prison didn’t do enough to keep Joseph safe.

Two years after the inquest, the coroner went on to make an unprecedented request for a public inquiry into Joseph’s death which was later refused by ministers.

Joseph’s death is one of 36 child deaths in prisons in England and Wales between 1990-2022. His family has campaigned alongside others about issues surrounding the imprisonment of children.