MOST of children from across Dorset who come into contact with the criminal justice system have speech and language difficulties.

Often their problems have not been spotted at school and are not dealt with until they have been sentenced.

The county-wide youth justice service has been using a speech and language therapist since 2018 to help tackle the problems, initially funded nationally, but now financially supported by the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group.

Youth justice service manager David Webb has told councillors that all children who receive a court order, or a second caution, are assessed.

“They have identified that around 80 per cent in the youth justice system have speech, language and communication needs and in a number of cases, 30 per cent or slightly more, that is a significant need – developmental, or a language disorder, which had not previously been recognised at school,” Mr Webb told the Dorset Council people and health overview committee meeting on Tuesday.

He said the knowledge allowed the service, which works in the BCP area as well as rural Dorset, to offer targeted help with each individual child. He said that families also found it helpful to understand why they may have had challenges in communicating with their young people.

“That speech and language work is really important and we are now planning to run courses for others, including Dorset Police, so that when they interview children they are aware of the child’s needs. We have also done work with the magistrates in terms of what happens in the courts,” he said.

The meeting heard that although the trend of youth offending had been downwards since the pandemic, there was now evidence, across the county, of an increase in anti-social behaviour from young people, which is being monitored.

“It’s almost as if they have been ‘let out’ “said Purbeck councillor Beryl Ezzard: “I’ve had a report from my local police that they’ve had lots of cases of anti-social behaviour since March and April…we’ve got to be very careful and very vigilant about what is going on there,” she said.