Pepper spray used on 10% of teens at young offender institutions during trial
Figures revealed after high court quashes appeal against rollout of Pava in YOIs on basis its use would be ‘extremely rare’
The children’s commissioner for England is “deeply concerned” by data obtained by Hyphen revealing that a tenth of all youngsters at two young offender institutions (YOIs) have been sprayed with a controversial synthetic pepper spray in the months since ministers greenlit a trial of its use by staff.
It comes after a high court judge on Monday quashed a judicial review brought by the Howard League charity challenging the rollout of pelargonic acid vanillylamide (Pava) in YOIs, pointing to government assurances that the use of the chemical would be “extremely rare”.
Then justice secretary Shabana Mahmood authorised “specially trained staff” at three of the four YOIs in England — Feltham A, Werrington and Wetherby — to use Pava on children aged 15 and above in April 2025. The trial is running for an initial 12 months. Mahmood, who is now home secretary, said the incapacitant spray was needed to combat “increased levels of violence” but should be used only as a “last resort”.
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Now, data obtained by Hyphen through freedom of information disclosures shows that staff at Feltham YOI in Hounslow, west London, and Werrington YOI in Staffordshire had sprayed Pava on 18 children and young people during six incidents between April and November 2025. It means 10% of the 174 teenagers at the two units had the spray — whose effects on children are not fully known and whose effectiveness is disputed — used on them.
The government’s own equality analysis warned that Muslim, Black and neurodiverse youngsters could be “potentially be disproportionately impacted” by the policy.
“I am deeply concerned to hear that Pava spray has been used against so many children in less than a year since the policy was approved,” Dame Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner, told Hyphen.
She urged the government to “reconsider the use of Pava in youth settings”.
The Youth Custody Service (YCS), part of the Ministry of Justice, conducted a child rights impact statement on the possible toll of rolling out Pava in YOIs in February 2025. It noted that Muslim children in custody are already “disproportionately” likely to be physically restrained, and said there was “potential for Black boys to be disproportionately impacted by the introduction of Pava”.
“There is unchallenged evidence that Pava is likely to be used in a disproportionate way against Black and Muslim children in custody, it having been so in the adult context and in respect of other pain-inducing techniques of force in YOIs,” the Howard League said in its written legal arguments. It claimed the government had “failed” to assess the risk and extent of racial and religious discrimination in the use of Pava on children in custody.
According to the report, NHS England also concluded that “from the limited evidence available on the use of Pava spray in neurodiverse populations it is reasonable to conclude that autistic individuals may be differently affected by the effects of Pava and may be slower to recover. This may also be true of other neurodiverse individuals.”
There are four YOIs in England and one in Wales for boys aged 15 to 18. As of November 2025, there were 316 young people being held in them, government data shows. Different figures from inspections at Feltham A and Werrington during 2025 show a total of 174 young people held there, suggesting Pava was used on more than one in 10.
Children and young people held at both facilities were surveyed by the prisons watchdog in April and May of 2025. Some 40% or more of respondents at both identified as Muslim, as did 16% of the 164 held at Wetherby in March 2024.
It means Muslims are over-represented in these YOIs compared to the 10.3% of the 15 to 18-year-old population of England and Wales they made up as of the 2021 census, the data suggests.
As part of its judicial review submissions, the Howard League also highlighted a warning in 2023 from the YCS’s lead psychologist that “the use of incapacitant sprays therefore has the potential to escalate, rather than de-escalate, incidents”.
The charity Barnardo’s also surveyed children in the three YOIs for their views on the policy, noting “concerns about misuse and emotional distress”, “lack of trust in staff intentions and fear of escalation” and “long-term worries about long-term physical effects and emotional trauma”. But some understood the “rationale and need for protection”, the government said.
“When Pava is used, people often feel severe pain in their eyes, they cough a lot, find it hard to think straight and might feel a burning sensation on their skin,” the government’s impact report notes. There has been “limited research” into Pava’s impact on children, it added.
The spray is classified as a prohibited weapon under the Firearms Act 1968.
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The government admits it is a “pain-inducing technique”, and Mahmood has said Pava should be used in YOIs only to avert the risk of “serious or life-threatening injury”. Recent incidents at YOIs, she added, had “seen staff members act as human shields to protect victims from attack where they have been stamped and kicked in the head by numerous assailants”. Last summer, the chief inspector of prisons found levels of violence at Feltham A were “the highest of any prison in the country”.
De Souza said staff must “feel safe” but added that the answer “cannot be introducing more pain-inducing restraint”, which risks “normalising violence” within these institutions.
The government has said ministers and the relevant local authorities will be notified of every use of Pava in YOIs and that there will be “live evaluation to monitor impact and outcomes”. Despite this, Leeds City Council said it did not know how many times Pava had been used at Wetherby YOI.
The Ministry of Justice was approached for comment.
