An average of six primary school children are being arrested every day in Britain for behaviour that was once treated as being naughty, a report has claimed.

About 20 lakh young persons were detained by police in England and Wales last year with 2,117 below the age of 11.

In one case in Sussex, four youngsters were held after throwing sticks at a horse chestnut tree, and in another case in Cheshire an 11-year-old schoolboy was arrested on suspicion of a hate-crime after calling a classmate gay, the report said.