Probably the most iconographic footage associated with children in custody vehicles dates from 1993, when Robert Thompson and Jon Venables made their first appearance at South Sefton magistrates’ court after being charged with the murder of two-year-old James Bulger. The blue police vans these two young children were thought to be travelling in were attacked with eggs, bottles, stones and fists, and some in the baying crowd screamed for their necks to be snapped. The author Blake Morrison reflects on news clippings from that day over 20 years ago:

It turned out that the primary school boys had been led away from the court in cars, and the vans had been decoys, such was the level of public vitriol. No child transported to or from an English court has since attracted so much interest, although there is plenty to be troubled about.

A few years after the police vans were attacked in Merseyside, the then chief inspector of prisons, David Ramsbotham, undertook a review of the treatment of young prisoners. He reported that the prison transportation of children had been recently contracted out to companies with vehicles containing inbuilt cells, and that this had been done ‘in the interests of improved security’. He goes on to describe the conditions in these vehicles:

During 2009/10, researchers from the Howard League for Penal Reform discussed prison life with 55 teenagers. The journey from court to prison was particularly grueling. The charity’s subsequent report explains why vehicles transporting prisoners are known as ‘sweatboxes’:

One boy described feeling as if prisoners in security vans were treated ‘like animals’.