Kesia Leatherbarrow broke a window trying to enter a residential care home for ex-addicts to visit a friend. When officers arrested the 17-year-old, they discovered a small quantity of cannabis. She spent two nights and three days in police custody; a few hours after being released, she hanged herself.

The death of the Manchester teenager last December has focused attention again on the treatment of juvenile suspects in police stations.

This week lawyers for Kesia’s family will issue a judicial review challenge to the Home Office’s policy for detention of 17-year-olds by police.

At issue is whether all children under the age of 18 should have the right to be transferred to local authority care homes overnight when held for questioning. At present it only applies to those aged 16 and under. The Home Office has indicated it will make the change but not said when legislation would be introduced.

Last year the High Court ordered home secretary Theresa May to redraft the code governing detention of teenagers under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

Kesia’s mother, Martina Brincat Baines, a teacher, told the Guardian that the 17-year-old had suffered from mental health problems: “She had been in hospital for five weeks. That night she was trying to see a friend in a residential care home for ex-addicts.

“She broke a window because it was out of visiting hours and she wanted to get in. The police were called and she was arrested for criminal damage. They found cannabis on her. The officers told my husband, from whom I am separated. I was never informed. She had no adult representation when she was charged and had her fingerprints taken.”

Kesia was taken to the magistrates’ court on the Monday morning but was told they couldn’t see her because she was a juvenile. So they bailed her to come back to the juvenile court the next day. “She never made it,” said Baines.

“She was found in a friend’s garden the morning she was supposed to go to court. She had hanged herself. She told the police when she was arrested that if she was released she should be released to a hospital because she was going to kill herself.

“She should never have been kept in a police station for three days. We want the Home Office to make that change in law now. If it had been done in time for Kesia, it might not have happened.”SheBaines said that if the law had been changed then her daughter might still be alive.

Kesia’s was the latest in a series of deaths among 17-year-olds who had just been released from police custody.

Joe Lawton, who lived in Disley, south Manchester, killed himself after being arrested for drink driving in 2012; his parents were not told that he had been charged.

Eddie Thornber, also 17 and from Manchester, had been detained for possession of 50p worth of cannabis in 2011; he hanged himself in woods near his home. His parents did not know he had been served with a court summons.

The families of all three teenagers are supporting the legal challenge which is being brought by the charity Just for Kids Law. Shauneen Lambe, the organisation’s director, said: “It is tragic that another 17-year-old has died after being held at a police station. After the [last legal challenge], the home secretary committed to protecting 17-year-olds held at police stations, but this turned out just to be lip service.

“We have spent many months campaigning for government to extend all [juvenile] protections to arrested 17-year-olds, but it continues to stall – including by rejecting an amendment to the Criminal Justice & Courts Bill which, by changing just one word, would solve the problem.

“While they refuse to act, we have no alternative but to ask the courts to tell the government again, what it has told them before; 17-year-olds at the police station are children not adults.”

Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK is a signatory, all children under the age of 18 must be treated as juveniles.

Following the previous judicial review, the Home Office agreed to allow 17-year-olds taken into police custody to be supported by a parent or an appropriate adult. The department also accepted that parents should be informed if their 17-year-old children are detained.

But the Home Office did not change the regulations on overnight accommodation for 17-year-olds – leaving vulnerable youngsters in police stations overnight. Had Kesia been taken to a local authority care home, her mother believes, experienced youth workers might have been able to reassure her and prevent her from taking her life.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring that young people are protected and treated appropriately while in police custody.

“That is why the government launched a review of existing legislation, which continues to treat 17-year-olds as adults. That review has been completed and has recommended that the law is changed so that they are treated as children.

“We will seek to amend this outstanding legislation, including provisions that relate to detention overnight in police custody, as soon as possible.”

An inquest into Kesia’s death has not yet been held. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is conducting an investigation into her death.