More than half of criminals may have suffered a head injury which could be fuelling their offending, a new review by British brain experts suggests.

Specialists from the universities of Oxford, Exeter, Manchester, Glasgow and Sheffield, and the Centre for Mental Health, are calling for all prisoners to be routinely checked for signs of traumatic brain injuries.

A comprehensive review, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, suggests that bumps to the head from falls, assaults or road accidents can lead to neural injuries which alter the brain structure, and increase the risk of violence offending.

The authors claim that up to 60 per cent of people in custody have suffered some kind of head injury in the past, ranging from mild to severe.

In contrast, around one in 200 people in the general public have been admitted to hospital for a head injury according to the charity Headway.