Weapons such as sharpened objects and rocks taken from children aged 15-18 at YOI Wetherby

Almost 900 weapons were seized in one year from children detained in a young offender institution in the north of England, a prisons watchdog has found.

In its annual report published on Friday into HM young offender institution Wetherby in West Yorkshire, the institution’s independent monitoring board found that children were in possession of a range of improvised weapons. The children told IMB they carried the weapons because they felt unsafe behind bars.