Spalding-based solicitor: 'A police cell is no place for a child'
Published: 10:00, 20 December 2020
A leading solicitor believes that "a police cell is no place for a child" as new figures reveal a 63 per cent fall in the number of under-18s arrested in Lincolnshire.
Anita Toal, managing partner at Maples Solicitors, in Spalding, welcomed research by the Howard League for Penal Reform, which showed that police in the county arrested 696 children aged 17 and younger in 2019.
This compared to 1,911 arrests in 2011, a year after the national charity "working for less crime, safer communities and fewer people in prison" launched a campaign to stop the criminalisation of children.