Managers at Medway Secure Training Centre received performance-related bonuses this year while allegations of abuse were being investigated.

According to The Guardian, senior managers at the Rochester youth jail received the pay awards in April, weeks after the chief inspector of prisons said that “managerial oversight failed to protect young people from harm at the jail”.

The youth jail in Rochester was being run by G4S when the allegations emerged following an undercover investigation by the BBC. It was taken over by the Ministry for Justice’s National Offender Management Service (NOMS) in July.

A G4S spokesman said: “Four people working at Medway were eligible for performance-related pay in the past year under a mix of personal (non-financial) and financial objectives.

“One received no payment at all and the remaining three received reduced payments, based on elements of personal and financial performance.”

After the documentary aired on BBC’s Panorama programme in January the centre manager stepped down, and two duty operations managers were later dismissed.

Six former employees appeared at Medway Magistrates Court today after being charged over the allegations and, Rebecca Harold, 24, of Grecian Street, Maidstone is due to stand trial over the matter at the same court tomorrow.

A 25-year-old man from Oxfordshire arrested remains on police bail until November 3.