Haut de la Garenne - Jersey Child Abuse Cover-Up

[TonyGosling]

see also
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=13731

"Police say it is vital that any alleged victims still unidentified contact the Incident Room as soon as possible, on 0800 7357777."
BBC article's editor doesn't like to use the word 'abuse'? As if seventy witnesses over thirty years could be 'making it up'. Well done to the plucky St Helier cops - more power to yer elbow and I hope those responsible for this are sweating buckets. The original Community Care article citing 'institutional child abuse', in the headline, presumably a quote from the police, has been censored.

What has this to do with Bergerac though Mr Hall? Hello???

Investigating Jersey's 'abuse' history
By Robert Hall - BBC News - Published: 2007/12/04 18:01:24 GMT

A police investigation in Jersey has highlighted alleged physical and sexual abuse against children dating back to the 1960s.
The current focus is a children's care home where attacks may have taken place over three decades.
On a hilltop near Jersey's east coast, the buildings are familiar as a setting for the BBC's Bergerac series.
But, after 12 months of covert investigation, detectives believe the former Haut de la Garenne care home may have had a more sinister past.
Built at the turn of the 20th Century, Haut de La Garenne served as a school and as an orphanage, before becoming part of Jersey's childcare provision.
Until its closure in the 1980s, it housed up to 60 young people with special needs.


The care home is now a Youth Hostel

Jersey Police, following up a series of convictions for sexual offences involving officers from the island's Sea Cadet Corps, say they began to notice links between victims in those cases, and a number of island institutions, including Haut de la Garenne.
Deputy Chief Officer Lennie Harper told me that since deciding to reveal the operation, his officers have received over 100 calls and e-mails.
From those contacts they have identified more than 70 alleged victims, and at least 20 suspects.
Faced with such a major inquiry, Jersey has requested specialist help from the UK.
In the Incident Room, one local officer, Rachel Hart told me that many callers were distraught, others angry that complaints at the time had not been heeded.

'Not dealt with'

"They find it difficult to trust us," she said, "but I make it clear to them that this time we are taking any allegations very seriously."
Lennie Harper, who recalls similar inquiries in both the UK and Northern Ireland, says he believes these alleged offences span at least three decades.
The allegations range "from pretty severe physical and mental abuse right through to the most serious sexual crimes that you can imagine", he said.
"We will of course be looking to see if there are any criminal implications into why these matters weren't dealt with, and why they weren't brought before the courts."
Police say it is vital that any alleged victims still unidentified contact the Incident Room as soon as possible, on 0800 7357777.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/jersey/7127467.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/jersey/7127467.stm



Jersey Police investigate child abuse allegations
Posted: 26 November 2007
writes Derren Hayes

Jersey Police are investigating a series of allegations of historical sexual and physical abuse of children at institutions on the island, it has emerged. Their enquiries focus on Haute de la Garenne care home and the Jersey Sea Cadets and span a 40-year period dating back to the 1960s.

Police say eight people have contacted telephone helplines set up as part of the investigation, and that it has already gathered “valuable” evidence from a number of victims and witnesses. The bulk of the allegations relate to events that took place in the 1970s and 80s, occurring on premises run by the States of Jersey and voluntary groups.

A Police statement said: “The States of Jersey Police would like to make it clear that we have been assured by the chief minister that all state departments will give full co-operation to the enquiry and to date this has been the case. Full and valuable assistance has been forthcoming from the current management team of the Sea Cadets both in Jersey and the UK.”

Earlier this year, a child protection inquiry was launched in Jersey after a UK social worker blew the whistle on the “Dickensian” conditions in Greenfields secure unit. Simon Bellwood told Community Care children as young as 11 were routinely locked up for 24 hours or more in solitary confinement. It is not thought this is linked to the latest investigation.

Officers are urging abuse victims to contact its historical abuse enquiry team on 0800 7357777 - or the NSPCC on 0800 1691173.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2007/11/26/106585/jersey-polic e-investigate-child-abuse-allegations.html


Calls from abused reach 100
by Natalie Harrison - Published 28/11/2007 - Guernsey Press and Star
POLICE in the Channel Islands now have the names of over 100 people alleging child abuse.
http://www.thisisguernsey.com/code/showarchive.pl?ArticleID=003001&yea r=2007&category=news

Jersey Police confirmed yesterday that since investigation telephone lines became operational on Thursday, 51 people had contacted them or the NSPCC from across the Bailiwick, Jersey and as far afield as Thailand and Australia.
This includes contact from individuals now living in Guernsey.
Jersey Police spokeswoman Louise Nibbs said yesterday that 32 calls had been received by the historical abuse enquiry team, while a number of people had telephoned a separate NSPCC-run line.
And the response to that defied expectations.
‘The latest update from NSPCC is that there have been 19 calls which we have yet to analyse but the society tell us that the average for a police line of this type is six calls,’ said Miss Nibbs.
Before going public with the investigation, police were already aware of 50 alleged victims of abuse, said to have occurred at a number of institutions and organisations in Jersey from as far back as the 1960s.
The spotlight has fallen in particular on the former children’s home, Haut de la Garenne, which was renamed in the 80s and eventually closed down in the early 90s.
It is thought a number of children may have been adopted and brought to Guernsey and may now be living as adults in the Bailiwick or further afield.
Deputy Chief Officer Lenny Harper, leading the year-and-a-half-long investigation, told journalists earlier that while most of the suspected abusers were said to be male, the allegations were such that some women were also said to have been involved in committing the abuse.
And on the question of whether the revelations might prompt any offenders to leave the island in fear of prosecution, Mr Harper said that would do them no good at all.
‘If they have committed these offences, they may be assured that there is a fair possibility that the States of Jersey Police will be knocking on their doors,’ he said.
* Were you a victim of abuse at Haut de la Garenne or elsewhere? Call 0800 169 1173 or, if outside the UK please dial: +44 (0)20 7825 7489.


Jersey Police probe allegations of institutional child abuse
article Source: Community Care | Date: 2007-11-26
Jersey Police probe allegations of institutional...Subscribe Online writes Derren Hayes Jersey Police are investigating a series of allegations...on Haute de la Garenne care home and the Jersey Sea Cadets and span a 40-year period dating...
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2007/11/26/106581/jersey-polic e-probe-allegations-of-institutional-child.html

[TonyGosling]

Jersey Senator Stuart Syvret should be congratulated for his quest to root out poor practice in Jersey's care system (Community Care, 30 August 2007).
Twenty years ago, as a young graduate social worker, I worked at Heathfield, one of the homes recommended for closure by the 2002 Kathie Bull report.
Our team had taken on the legacy of Haut De La Garenne - a monolithic children's home staffed by caring but mainly untrained, unqualified staff. There, solitary confinement, corporal punishment and many other dubious practices were rife. On its closure, those young people deemed 'workable' were farmed out to foster carers and so-called Family Group Homes (that's another story) leaving us at Heathfield with a residue of damaged, institutionalised adolescents.
I like to think that we (staff and young people together) broke the mould. After two years, we had a small community of 'unplacable' kids who had a real investment in their home. I'm honoured still to be in contact with many of them. Some have mental health, offending, drug and alcohol issues as adults few have meaningful academic qualifications. Most, however, are leading productive lives with decent jobs and..........

[Mackelroy]

We know for a fact that there was institutionalized child torture in Florida in the USA for decades. The government sponsored it so it was useless going to them about it. Some people did make a point of going after some who were responsible for it. Sure it was illegal, but it was effective. I saw one of the torturers after they caught him out at his favorite watering hole.
They beat that man all to hell. He looked like he had been dragged behind a car for a mile over a bumpy road. I kid you not. They really did a professional job on him. I was told it was profssional because they broke his hand or wrist before working him over. Breaking a hand or arm, I was told, is what professionals do so that they can punish the offender without his being able to figh back effectively.

There is more than one way of skinning a cat.

[Mackelroy]

I hate to say it, but Timothy McVeigh was the only man who made a definitive statement against the government for facilitating the incineration deaths of those men, women, and children in Waco, Texas.

I can never be absolutely sure who it was, but I believe that two others and I met McVeigh and another fellow with him in a donut shop in Florida not far from where his mother was living at the time. If I told you he was telling me how to build a fertilizer bomb, and that they swore for certain that they were going to attack government, would you believe me? Probably not, but he was. He told me this---I suppose the first thing you are going to do is contact the police and the FBI and tell them what you just heard. I told him that I would not do anything of the sort, and I did not either.

The donut shop was in Stuart, Florida, about 15 miles from where McVeigh's mother lived in Fort Pierce. McVeigh was seen at the Treasure Coast Mall three miles or so from that donut shop, and about 12 miles from his mother's house.

[ian neal]

Assuming what you are saying is true, does it not trouble you that you had it in your power to prevent a senseless act of terror and the murder of 168 people? How did you come to meet and know McVeigh?

Sure Waco was according to the evidence also a senseless act of terror and murder by the state, but that wouldn't excuse Oklahoma City Bomb(s). If you believe that the way to make a 'definitive statement' about state terror is to condone or promote terror in return you are on the wrong site. We only promote non-violent resistence

[Mackelroy]

From what I have seen of so called truth forums so far on the internet, the only way of being on the wrong site is by telling the truth, which is, for every truth forum I have seen so far, all of them.

These two dudes just walked into the Original Donut Company in Stuart, Florida one morning about 3:00 a.m. I was explaining to two other guys, W.D. Johnson and Don Perkis I believe it was, how a devastating attack could be produced against government in Florida by using a large aircraft like a C-130, loading it with barrels of gasoline and explosives, and flying it into a building.

When the taller of the two dudes who walked in heard that he asked, "Why do it like that?" I told him it was the only thing I could think up. I had written a novel in 1989 "Genesis of Terror" which ended in that kind of attack. It was then that the taller guy started talking about making fertilizer bombs. I thought he was joking because I had no idea fertilizer could be made to explode. But when I said that the militias were a bunch of pot bellies who do nothing but plink at tin cans on weekends, he said they were not militia, and they really were going to attack government. The shorter of the two guys said something too. The taller of the two did expand on the---we are definitely going to do this---theme. Then they got up, walked outside, got in their car, and pulled out of the parking lot. It was clear that he wanted to tell me they were definitely going to do it and it was not just talk.

As soon as they pulled out, another car pulled in, maybe two cars. All of the people who got out of the car(s) were definitely Middle Eastern looking. They came inside, four or five of them, and looked around all over the place. They did not order anything. Then they went outside and stood in front of the place a while talking and looking around. After that they got in their car(s) and left. Incident closed.

It happened all right.

It is interesting you say I had the ability to prevent the incident in Oklahoma City in the palm of my hands. So, this is not really a search for truth, but just another variation of the blame game. I am not even going to try to explain the futility of going to local police or FBI with something like that. You talk about negligence---Go to Stuart, Florida and see government and law enforcement in action. I could tell you stories you would never believe. I have gone to them in the past, and believe me, they are so negligent you would never believe me if I told you the truth about it all day long. It is beyond anything you could possibly believe.
In fact, I am hesitant to tell you the truth because you could not believe it.

[Mackelroy]

By the way, the credible threat of violence is the root of all political power.
I am a university educated person, and I study these matters. Violence and coercion have been with us since the beginning as far as we know.
Deal with it.

[ian neal]

[fish5133]

Childs Remains found At Former Jersey Kids Home

see also
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=12594

http://www.orange.co.uk/news/topstories/6984.htm?linkfrom=hp4&link=tic ker_pos_1_link_1&article=index

[TonyGosling]

Jersey's former minister for health and social services Senator Stuart Syvret today spoke of the "systemic failure in child care".
Senator Syvret, who ran the department for two years until he was fired last year, claims savage, violent and sexual abuse in various homes for children has been on going for 60 years and concealment and cover up prevented the attacks coming to light.
"The senior management told me there were one or two isolated incidents but rejected that there is a long running systematic failure in child protection."
"The culture of concealment, the culture of cover up, still persists today.


Police search for up to SIX more bodies after child's remains found at abuse scandal orphanage
23/02/08 - News section

Police are braced for more grisly finds after they discovered the remains of a body while investigating alleged child abuse in a former orphanage yesterday.



Jersey Police began a search of the former Haut de la Garenne children's home on Tuesday, using two sniffer dogs and radar equipment. They are now focusing on one area of the building in particular after a sniffer dog indicated there may be further remains buried there.

Eight suspicious sites have been identified by sniffer dogs and are set to be the focus of further examinations.

"What appears to be potential remains of a child have been recovered," said a spokesman. "The inquiry is continuing.

"We don't know yet if the skeleton is male or female, it is still very early stages. It is not thought the remains are recent but we don't know at this time how long they have been there."

It is thought the remains have been there for at least five years. They were found by the sniffer dog through several inches of concrete. An archaeologist ruled they were not the remains of an infant or an adult, and so must be those of a child or a young teenager.

One of the sniffer dogs, Eddie, who picked up the scent of the remains in the house, was used in the hunt for missing Madeleine McCann last year. Police said they "could not rule out" the possibility of more bodies emerging.

DC Lenny Harper confirmed excavations to look for more bodies at the former children's home would focus on eight suspicious sites.

"The sniffer dog has indicated a number of spots which are forensically interesting to us, six to eight at the moment.

"Some of those might be traces of the same remains we've already dug up, however the indications from the dog make us believe there must be some different sites.

"They can't all be linked to the one we've already discovered.

"In some areas of the building all I can say is we have evidence of certain things which have happened and we will be looking closely at these.

"But there have been a lot of renovations over the years which will make it difficult."

When Harper launched the child abuse inquiry last November, fears were expressed that the inquiry could spread to islands of Guernsey and Alderney, as well as other countries including Australia, where former staff and residents of Haut de la Garenne may have moved.

Detectives have identified some 70 alleged victims and at least 20 suspects. More than 140 potential victims have contacted a police helpline since the investigation began.

The allegations span a period from the 1960s up to the early years of the present decade, although police said the bulk of them focus on the 1970s and 1980s.

Police say the case could take them as far as Thailand and Australia, where former residents of the children's home claim they were victims.

The spokeswoman said more than 140 potential victims have contacted a helpline since the investigations began.

Last month, 76-year-old Gordon Claude Wateridge, of St Clement, Jersey, was the first person to be charged in connection with the historical abuse investigation.

He is charged with three alleged offences of historic indecent assaults on girls aged under 16 between 1969 and 1979 at the former Haut de la Garenne children's home.

Haut de la Garenne is a former Victorian school and orphanage which today serves as a youth hostel. It has been featured in the TV detective series Bergerac as a police station.

Jersey's Chief Minister, Senator Frank Walker, said it was "with deep horror and sadness" that he had learnt of the discovery.

He said: "The discovery was made as part of the police inquiry into historic child abuse. Despite the passage of time, my ministers and I are determined that, if foul play was involved, whoever committed this outrage should be swiftly found and brought to justice.

"At the beginning of this investigation I gave my word that no stone would remain unturned and the police will continue to have our full support and all the resources they need to pursue their inquiries.

"It is imperative that our children are safe in Jersey and I believe that today they are. It is, however, clear that this may not always have been the case and although we can't right the wrongs of the past, we will do everything in our power to assist the police in seeking out the person or persons responsible."

Jersey's former minister for health and social services Senator Stuart Syvret today spoke of the "systemic failure in child care".

Senator Syvret, who ran the department for two years until he was fired last year, claims savage, violent and sexual abuse in various homes for children has been on going for 60 years and concealment and cover up prevented the attacks coming to light.

Senator Syvret criticised previous Jersey government and police for failing to undercover the alleged abuse.

He said: "It started to become clear to me that the system was going badly wrong and I started to ask some very hard questions.

"This became problematic when it became clear to senior management that I was taking the side of whistleblowers and the victims.

"The senior management told me there were one or two isolated incidents but rejected that there is a long running systematic failure in child protection."

Senator Syvret said he had spoken to several alleged victims and was horrified by their stories.

He said: ""I have spoken to two victims from Haut de la Garenne, they told me of being flogged by canes, locked in cells in solitary confinement and I have been told of sexual abuse at that home.

"The culture of concealment, the culture of cover up, still persists today.

"There are a number of serious questions that have to be asked."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_artic le_id=517855&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
Find this story at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_artic le_id=517855&in_page_id=1770

[TonyGosling]

more today
Secret report 'shows more Jersey child abuse'
The Times - February 26, 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3437788.ece

A former Jersey government minister today released what he claimed was a secret report detailing child abuse allegations at a second institution on the island, as searches continued at a former children's home where human remains have been found.

Senator Stuart Syvret, the Health Minister until last summer, announced what he said was evidence of a "disgraceful" culture of cover-up, which saw the damning independent report, published in 2000, kept secret.........



and (this one the PA website is down after only 8 minutes!)
Ex-care resident makes abuse claims
The Press Association - 8 minutes ago
A former resident of a care home in Jersey where human remains were found has claimed children were repeatedly raped while staying there.

Peter Hannaford spent the first 12 years of his life at Haut de la Garenne, which is now at the centre of a major child abuse investigation.

The 59-year-old said he was abused almost every night and so were many other children. Mr Hannaford claims the abuse was carried out by both male and female members of staff and the building should be knocked down and "erased from people's memories" when the police investigation finishes.

Detectives leading the inquiry into alleged abuse at the home have spoken to 140 victims and witnesses about allegations dating back 40 years.

Officers said since they went public with the case, a further 10 people had come forward claiming they were victims and the NSPCC had received 63 calls from people claiming to have been abused. Twenty-seven cases were referred to the police.

A spokesperson for Jersey police could not say whether Mr Hannaford, who still lives on the island, was part of the inquiry as they could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

Mr Hannaford told the Jersey Evening Post: "Boys and girls were abused while I was there. The abuse was anything from rape and torture, it happened every night."

Excavation work by forensic teams at the Haut de la Garenne was suspended on Tuesday for a structural survey to be carried out.

Police are focusing on a bricked-up cellar after the discovery on Saturday of a child's skull. It is understood that work cannot start on the cellar until the survey is completed.

Forensic teams are searching seven sites after a sniffer dog specially trained to find human remains indicated a number of areas. They were alerted to the home following a child abuse investigation involving allegations mainly from the 1970s and 1980s when the centre was a home for children with behaviour problems.


http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5g03ZGms42BCyZ675XBqnx1sasebA
http://www.crawleyobserver.co.uk/latest-national-news/Excare-resident- makes-abuse-claims.3816085.jp

[Justin]

I hope Matthew Delooze is wrong............but I suspect he may be right!

http://www.matthewdelooze.co.uk/news.php?readmore=152

[TonyGosling]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_artic le_id=521531&in_page_id=1770

No relation I trust

[TonyGosling]

The faces of directors of the centre who were responsible when the abuse was taking place


John le Marquand, education president in 1960 (right); Reg Jeune, education president from 1971-1984; John Rodhouse, director of education in 1974 (left)

Shackles found in 'torture' dungeon at children's home in Jersey
By REBECCA CAMBER and ARTHUR MARTIN 28th February 2008

A pair of shackles were found yesterday in the "Colditz" care home where 160 children are alleged to have suffered horrific abuse.

The gruesome find in an underground chamber came as police began searching for a third dungeon at the Haut de la Garenne property and located two suspicious "pits" in the home's grounds..........

[fish5133]

Wonder how soon it will be before the carpet will get lifted.

[TonyGosling]

Home truths


For 40 homes on the island of Jersey there will be, over the coming days, weeks and possibly months, no such thing as an ordinary knock on the front door. These are the homes of 40 suspects, some regarded as respected figures in a tight and wealthy island community, who are currently on a list held by the States of Jersey Police. They face arrest, questioning and possible charges in connection with physical and sexual child abuse that detectives are now convinced was systematic, endemic and brutal'' and took place over decades at one of the island's former residential institutions, called Haut de la Garenne.

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2086677.0.home _truths.php

We are convinced they know who they are, and are waiting for our call,'' says the calm but clearly determined Lenny Harper, the Ulsterman who is Jersey's deputy chief of police and who is heading the inquiry at the home.

But as teams of police officers, detectives, specialist anthropologists and forensic archaeologists turn a remote Victorian building above Mont Orgueil Castle into a scene from CSI, there remains the distinct possibility that Harper will find himself in charge of a larger homicide investigation.

It will be two weeks, perhaps a bit more, before the Jersey crime team are contacted by a laboratory in Cambridge. The analysis Harper is waiting for centres on the fragment of a child's skull that was dug up, buried under a concrete floor, inside Haut de la Garenne just over a week ago. Precise carbon dating of the remains may tell Harper when the child died. But there may not be enough forensic detail to tell him what he, and the rest of Jersey, really want to know - how he or she died.

Dating analysis should, however, place the partial remains at some point in Haut de la Garenne's history. First it was the Jersey Industrial School for "young people of the lower classes of society and neglected children", opened in 1867, then in 1900 became the Jersey Home for Boys, where flogging was described as "a routine practice". From 1960, as Haut de la Garenne it held juveniles on remand, orphans and children there through no fault of their own, all supposed to be cared for in an institution holding 60 children and run by around 20 residential staff till it was closed in 1986.

Finding the skull fragment at Haut de la Garenne was not an accident. If Harper's team find more remains as they methodically dig and make their way through specifically identified sites inside the building and in an adjacent field, they will have confirmed what they've been told in some detail by former residents of the home.

For over two years Harper has been conducting an investigation into allegations of what must have initially looked like a paedophile network on the island. What began covertly went public last year. Child abuse was uncovered at the island's Sea Cadets club; there were questions over brutal regimes found in some of the care institutions on Jersey.

Contacted by former residents at Haut de la Garenne who, through a confidential link with the NSPCC, told the police where to look and what to look for, a horrific picture that, Harper admits, has left many seasoned officers feeling very uneasy" has slowly emerged for what went on inside a home that was supposed to care for, not terrorise, innocent children.

From the descriptions of daily life at Haut de la Garenne given to the police and the NSPCC by some 160 victims, many who say they will appear as witnesses in court if charges are brought, there is a disturbing and brutal picture of life inside the home. There are allegations of beatings, sexual abuse, rape, hidden chambers, children drugged and then abused, of a regime of terror where daily survival was no easy task. Harper admits the picture is something society has had to deal with before - it's alarming, but not unique".

The horrors suffered by children for 20 years in care homes throughout North Wales in the 1980s and 1990s (especially at the Bryn Estyn children's home in Wrexham), which were documented in the Waterhouse Report of 2000, which investigated the offences of paedophiles trusted with children's welfare, back up Harper's view.

But Haut de la Garenne, if evidence of homicide is uncovered, may yet take such horrors to a higher level still.

From victims' testimonies there are descriptions of hidden chambers, underneath the main building, to which children were dragged to be abused. The descriptions include being chained up and mention a home-made trapdoor with stairs leading down to what any horror film would brand a dungeon.

Lawyers who have acted for child abuse victims know their clients' testimony can be unreliable, fragmented and time-distorted.

"Recollection is poor because of the emotional trauma the child was having to deal with at the time," says one leading QC with experience of trying to bring convictions in child abuse cases. "If the Jersey team have a detailed picture of what they've been told from many sources, and the excavations at the home corroborate the visual descriptions, then the suspects should be worried, very worried."

Victims' accounts describe how children at the home went missing, how staff would describe those who disappeared as simply "runaways". Harper's team have contacted some of the runaways, children who escaped the home, left the island and made new lives for themselves in places as far away as Australia and Thailand. But what records there are can't account for all the claimed runaways. Jersey's shocked population hope all the answers lie away from the island, but many seem worried that more nightmares are still to come. Rumours of buried bodies, says Harper, "can't be ignored".

At the Moorings Hotel in Gorey harbour, just a few minutes' walk down the hill from Haut de la Garenne, the scene looks like postcard perfection. With the mediaeval fortification of Mont Orgueil behind, small boats and yachts bobbing in the harbour and the Royal Jersey Golf Club just down the road, conversation in the hotel bar should be about the simple, relaxed life of the Bailiwick of Jersey, a sort of offshore Bournemouth.

Instead, John says the island doesn't like this much attention. "They the newspapers say we knew but said nothing, kept quiet." He points towards the coast and the golf club. "They took pictures of the German bunker on the first hole. Said we say nothing about how we were occupied by the Nazis. Said we notice nothing." He puts down his beer. "They can say what they like."

Vicky Coupland is the senior scene-of-crime officer at Haut de la Garenne. Working alongside a forensic anthropologist with specialist knowledge of bone fragments and a forensic archaeologist with knowledge of how rubble and debris can hold hidden meaning, Coupland is in charge of discovering what secrets may be buried at Haut de la Garenne. A sniffer dog trained to react to human remains helped the Jersey team locate the skull fragment inside the home. The dog also helped locate an underground chamber described in witness statements.

Over the coming week the focus will be on what lies beneath the home, what may lie under the tarmac courtyard, and what may be buried beneath the thin soil layer of an adjacent ploughed-up field.

Coupland says these are "difficult" crimes scenes. "We have been working in confined, cramped, dusty spaces. Lights make it hot inside a dark room where you can't stand up and where only one person can work at any one time."

Harper, from victims' descriptions, was looking for a hidden room. What has been found has staggered some of the investigating team. Worried about destroying load-bearing walls and causing damage to the main building, and fearing that evidence would be lost if they worked too fast, the Jersey team used the reaction of the sniffer dog and ground-penetrating radar equipment to discover what they thought was one underground chamber.

When they dug down and through a brick wall, they found not one chamber but two hidden rooms filled with debris. The way the room had been bricked up was not professional, indicating perhaps it had been bricked up quickly.

Victims had described being taken down to the chamber and physically abused. Harper had descriptions of a "bath" in more than one account from victims. The word "shackles" and "chains" also appeared in victims' accounts. Within days of the skull fragment being unearthed from the concrete, both a bath and shackles were said to be among the rubble from the first chamber, although Harper would not confirm either find.

What next? Within the past few days Harper's team were handed old plans that indicate the hidden chamber, though not on the routine architectural drawings for Haut de la Garenne, may in fact be part of a complex of rooms that belongs to an earlier building, with the Victorian sandstone structure built over it. Months of slow excavation may lie ahead. But there is no choice other than to go slow.

When Haut de la Garenne was converted to a youth hostel in 2004, with the old Victorian building given a £2.5 million facelift, bones were reported to have been uncovered by the workmen on the job. They were dismissed at the time as animal fragments and thrown away.

Nothing will be dismissed this time, with the investigations team hoping that some mitochondrial DNA fingerprints, which can be used to identify individuals, will be found on objects or walls in the subterranean rooms.

Records, routinely used by police on the UK mainland, seem to be absent in Jersey. In the 1960s and 1970s the States of Jersey Police had yet to be formed. The home kept what is called an "occurrence book", but according to Harper it isn't much use. Haut de la Garenne did not have its own doctor. The hospital in Jersey also holds no records of treating possibly abused children in its wards.

Harper clearly expects no help from anything written down in Jersey or at Haut de la Garenne. "The indication is that children were obstruc-ted when they tried to complain or tell someone," he says. But he is clear on one objective: what secrets the building will give up.

"We will still come away from here with evidence that children who were at Haut de la Garenne were savagely abused, abuse that involved physical and sexual assaults," he says defiantly.

Harper and the Jersey police, to be certain they are carrying out their work correctly, they have voluntarily called in a review team from the UK mainland. The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) Working Group will review the investigation so far. With Jersey not being part of the United Kingdom and therefore not under Home Office jurisdiction, Harper is nevertheless keen to ensure his investigation is working by the book, even if it is someone else's.

Others believe Jersey should be looking after its own affairs, and dismiss the criticism levelled by the island's former health minister, Senator Stuart Syvret, that the "over-riding concern of the establishment is the image of Jersey and that to prosecute people would be apocalyptically bad for Jersey".

Syvret has alleged that the island's authorities have ignored past evidence of abuse of children in its care, and that, rather than charge the people at the centre of abuse allegations, they have preferred to offer them the chance to resign and leave the island. According to Syvret, who was dismissed from the Jersey cabinet in August last year, "this whole episode raises questions about the island's ability to govern itself".

Jersey's chief minister, Frank Walker, despite saying this was the time for the island to "focus its attention on the protection of vulnerable children," nevertheless found time for a press conference last week to state why Syvret had been dismissed.

"Not for whistleblowing," he said, but because Syvret had become "so abusive to other ministers that they could no longer work with him."

The egos of the two politicians are on open display when Jersey least needs this kind of contest.

In 2002 and again in 2007, Jersey held inquiries into how its childcare regime was operating. Kathy Bull, a former Ofsted official, said in her 2002 report that she had concerns about some children's services and that certain homes should be closed down. Little action was taken on Bull's recommendations, and last year another report, from Andrew Williamson, was commissioned.

His findings are to be published shortly. With international attention now on Haut de la Garenne, what Williamson says about another of the island's care homes, Greenfields, will hold particular relevance.

Williamson's focus on Greenfields will describe a harsh regime at the home, involving solitary confinement for 24 hours as punishment for boys as young as 11 years of age. The home's head, Simon Bellwood, was dismissed when he criticised what was called the "Grand Prix" system, with "the pits" a nasty euphemism for the confinement punishment.

Since then Bellwood and Syvret have said Greenfields was using "torture" on those in its care. The Howard League for Penal Reform said that had Greenfields been in England, it would have been branded as an institution "breaking the law".

If all this renewed attention on how Jersey looks after the children in its care makes the 40 suspects on the police's list think it's time to leave, Harper has a simple message for them. "There are individuals I would prefer not to leave the island" he says. "But if they leave, we will find them.

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2086677.0.home _truths.php

[Shoestring]

Here's a superb article from today's Mail on Sunday written by Eileen Fairweather, the journalist who uncovered the systematic abuse at Islington children's homes in the 1990s. Fairweather's information suggests that the emerging scandal in Jersey could have links to a wider paedophile ring. She describes how she was informed in the 1990s of "a vicious child sex ring, with victims in both Britain and the Channel Islands," where "many ring members were powerful and wealthy. ... They included an aristocrat, clerics and a social services chief. Their friends included senior police officers."

'I have known about Jersey paedophiles for 15 years,' says award-winning journalist
By EILEEN FAIRWEATHER
Mail on Sunday, 2nd March 2008

The award-winning journalist who exposed terrible abuse in Islington children's homes now reveals horrifying links to sinister discoveries at Jersey's Haut de la Garenne.

I met the frightened policeman at an isolated country restaurant, many miles from his home and station. Detective Constable Peter Cook had finally despaired, and decided to blow the whistle to a reporter.

He was risking his career, so made me scribble my notes into a tiny pad beneath the tablecloth.

He had uncovered a vicious child sex ring, with victims in both Britain and the Channel Islands, and he wanted me to get his information to police abuse specialists in London.

Incredibly, he claimed that his superiors had barred him from alerting them.

He feared a cover-up: many ring members were powerful and wealthy. But I did not think him paranoid: I specialised in exposing child abuse scandals and knew, from separate sources, of men apparently linked to this ring.

They included an aristocrat, clerics and a social services chief. Their friends included senior police officers.

Repeatedly, inquiries by junior detectives were closed down, so I, a journalist, was asked to convey confidential information from one police officer to others. It seemed surreal.

I duly met trusted contacts at the National Criminal-Intelligence Squad. That was more than 12 years ago, and little happened - until now.

Last weekend, a child's remains were found at a former children's home on Jersey amid claims of a paedophile ring.

More than 200 children who lived at Haut de la Garenne have described horrific sexual and physical torture dating back to the Sixties.

When I heard the news, my eyes filled with tears. I felt heartbroken, not least at my own powerlessness. I have known for more than 15 years about Channel Islands paedophiles victimising children in the British care system.

I was relieved that the truth was finally emerging. But I felt devastated. Children had probably been murdered. I had so not wanted to be right.

I stood outside the forbidding Victorian building of Haut de la Garenne this week and watched grim-faced police in blue plastic forensic suits hunt its bricked-up secret basements for children's bones.

Outside, a large cross commemorates the 35 former residents who died fighting for their country: "Their names liveth forever." Oh yes?

What are the names of the children whose bodies may now be dug up - and why did no one miss and search for them earlier? Jersey's residents and political class must ask these questions.

Disturbing allegations about the murder of children in care have characterised other scandals I investigated in Britain, but today I can reveal for the first time the links between the abuse I uncovered at care homes in Islington, North London, and the horrifying discoveries on Jersey. ...

Full article

[TonyGosling]

What an excellent piece - expressing well the emotion police officers and journalists all over the country who have come across evidence of abuse will recognise.
And will strike degrees of fear and shame into the hearts of those who care more for their career than they do for those they are supposed to protect.


• Historical Abuse Enquiry Team: 0800 7357777

[fish5133]

[conspiracy analyst]

Jersy was occuppied by the Germans was it not?

Has all this all to do with getting rid of the tax status of these offshore tax havens in line with avowed EU policy?

Why now after so many years?

[conspiracy analyst]

http://conspiracy-research.blogspot.com/

'The isle of secrets and whispers...'

'The isle of Jersey sits off the coast of France like a rocky little remnant of history, not French but not entirely British either, a place of secrets where the bankers are discreet, the sun often shines and the past is too often hidden.

The island’s long tradition of self-government has bred a hardy independence, but it has also instilled a tendency to leave unpleasantness unspoken, whether the subject is the murkier aspects of offshore banking, or wartime collaboration, or, as now, the fate of youngsters in a former children’s home.

The Channel Islands pride themselves on following their own rules. Jersey has its own banknotes, its own legislative assembly, its own language and its own way of doing things. It is not part of the UK or the EU, but a possession of the British Crown, never fully incorporated into Britain.

Many of the 90,000 Jerseymen and Jerseywomen do not consider themselves either British or French, but a breed apart, with France only 12 miles (20km) to the south, and Weymouth 100 miles to the north.

Jersey’s strange history of semi-independence dates back to its annexation by the Dukes of Normandy in the 10th century. When Duke William conquered England, the Norman lands and the English kingdom were united under one monarch, and Jersey was ruled from Rouen; when King John lost his Norman territories in 1204, the Crown retained Jersey and the other Channel islands.

Victor Hugo, who lived in exile in Jersey in the mid-19th century, called the islands “pieces of France fallen into the sea and picked up by England”. But in many ways, Jersey feels like a combination of British suburbia and ancient Norman tradition.

Jersey law is based on Norman customary law as well as English law and royal statute. The Clameur de Haro, for example, is an ancient legal right whereby an individual may appeal against a wrong being inflicted by uttering the words: “ Haro! Haro! Haro! À l’aide, mon Prince, on me fait tort.” (Come to my aid, my Prince, for someone is doing me wrong.) No one knows for certain what “Haro” mean, but the law remains technically enforceable today.

Jersey’s 53-member legislature is made up of senators, constables, deputies, the Deputy Bailiff and the Bailiff, the island’s civil leader. Justice is administered by a Royal Court, presided over by an Attorney General. The Queen is represented by a lieutenant governor.

Alongside Jersey’s ancient titles persist some splendidly peculiar traditions. When the Queen visited in 2001, for example, she was presented with two mallards chained together on a silver dish by the Seigneur of Trinity “as a symbol of the tithe he owes for his fief”. History does not relate what she did with the luckless ducks.

Measuring only 118 sq kilometres (46 sq miles), with its rugged cliffs and sandy beaches, Jersey is a place of extraordinary beauty, and a powerful tourist magnet. Most British visitors to Jersey are simultaneously struck by its familiarity, the expat ambiance, the smart bungalows and bilingual street signs, but also by the sense of apartness on the island.

Jersey is different: this is the sunniest place in the British Isles, and the only place in these islands with green lizards. It is also, statistically, speaking, one of the richest places in the world, thanks to an economy based principally on financial services and tourism. Only Bermuda and Luxembourg have a higher per capita income. People who wish to move to the island but who are not considered “essential” must demonstrate massive net worth.

Income tax is levied at 20 per cent, and there is no VAT, making Jersey a haven for tax exiles. The Jersey government cooperates with international financial law enforcement, but this remains one of the largest offshore banking centres in the world, with money, clean and, occasionally, dirty, passing through in torrents.

Jersey mints its own banknotes and coins, and even in the matter of currency, the island guards its past. Where pound coins are now the only form of that denomination in Britain, in Jersey the pound note remains ubiquitous.

Until comparatively recently, the language of the islands was Jèrriais, a Norman French patois almost equally incomprehensible to French and British ears. Only three in a hundred islanders still speak the language (although one in eight claims some knowledge) but the linguistic difference persists in a guttural accent, closer in sound to South African than French.

If there is something defensive in the Jersey manner, that may be because the island has been on the political defensive for most of the millennium, building up fortifications to defend against French invasion.

When the invasion finally came, it was German. In July 1940 German troops entered the Channel Islands unopposed, Britain having made the strategic decision that they were not worth defending. The islands thus earned the grim distinction of becoming the only parts of the British Isles to be occupied by the Nazis.

The five-year Nazi occupation had a profound, if incalculable effect on the island’s mentality. For many years, the truth about the Nazi occupation of Jersey was often suppressed or ignored, and documentary evidence hidden away. The issue of whether Jersey collaborated, cohabited with the enemy, or quietly resisted the Nazis has been fiercely debated ever since. Certainly, there was no resistance movement in the islands equivalent to that in France, but then the occupation was far heavier here, with one German soldier for every two citizens. Unlike France, with its rural hinterland, there was virtually nowhere in a small island for resisters to hide.

Some certainly did resist, a few with remarkable heroism. Others actively collaborated. There were inevitable liaisons between the invaders and some Jersey women, disdained forever after as “Jerrybags”. The most shameful aspect of the occupation was the way some officials overzealously furnished the Nazi occupiers with details of Jewish individuals, many of whom subsequently perished.

There were small signs of resistance: V-signs painted on walls, the secret listening to the BBC, the occasionally sabotaged telephone wire. But for the most part, the islanders unenthusiastically acquiesced.

The story of Jersey under occupation is not a simple morality play of good and evil, but perhaps a cautionary tale about how hard it can be to identify the dividing line between the two. In Britain, we like to assume that the British would never have submitted to occupation; the story of Jersey is proof that British subjects are quite as capable of this sort of accommodation as anyone else.

Jersey suffered horribly under occupation. D-Day bypassed the islands, leaving the occupiers, but also the islanders, stranded. “Let ’em rot,” Churchill declared. He was talking about the German troops, probably. When the islands were finally liberated, Churchill hailed the return of “our dear Channel Islands”. Some islanders, remembering how the British troops had left in 1940, wondered just how dear they were to the British.

The psychological damage inflicted by those wartime events, and the recrimination and guilt that followed, may in part explain the island’s postwar sense of separateness. As it emerged as a postwar tax-haven, Jersey developed a reputation as a place where financial secrets would be kept, where privacy would be respected, where embarrassing issues would not be raised.

The relationship between Jersey and mainland Britain remains complex and ambivalent. A recent poll found that about 68 per cent of islanders favoured full independence from Britain. Jersey is surely too rich and comfortable to follow Kos-ovo, but the sense of autonomy remains a central part of the island mentality. Angry demonstrations erupted in 1992 when the Home Secretary sacked the deputy bailiff, the second-most senior judge, for being too slow. When the subject of wartime collaboration is raised on the mainland, the island reaction tends to be one of fury.

The prospect of police officers from the mainland wading into Jersey’s more recent past, and the investigation into allegations of child abuse, will renew claims in some quarters that Jersey is being unfairly targeted and misrepresented by outsiders.

Jersey remains a place of contradictions: an island of vivid sunlit beauty, with a sometimes dark past; a place where the past is the present, and jealously preserved; a small, self-govern-ing anomaly of history, where tourists and foreign money are welcome, but questions are not.

A law unto itself

— Jersey was populated by Vikings in the 9th century; the “ey” in Jersey is a Norse suffix meaning ”island”

— In return for refuge on Jersey in 1646, Charles II granted the island’s Governor, George Carteret, land in the American colonies, which Carteret named New Jersey

— When the Channel Islands became the only British soil to be occupied by Germans, in July 1940, sterling was replaced with Reichmarks, curfews were imposed and radios were confiscated

— More than 2,600 islanders still speak the indigenous Jèrriais, or “Jersey Norman”, as their first language. This was especially useful during the Occupation as neither their German occupiers nor the French interpreters were able to understand

— Beneath the sands of the surfer beach, St Ouen’s Bay, Jersey, lies a prehistoric landscape including an entire Neolithic forest

— Although the defence of Jersey is the responsibility of the British Government, Jersey is not part of the UK nor the European Union.'

[Marie]

This was in fact the first thing that sprung to my mind when I read about this horrible case.

There is a great obsession among bankers for (abandoned) children in children homes. I have long wondered why.
The large number of abuses of these (abandoned) children always seem be be covered up. The local staff, one or two big names get convicted if lucky - but the rest remains in the dark.

One of the best covered up stories is the one about Unicef Brussels - though the Belian Werkgroup Morkhoven published about it:

[TonyGosling]

Please also take a look at this post which relates to one nasty piece of work named Margaret Hodge who just so happens to have made it through Blair's patronage to be our Arts Minister - maybe we'll see a massive programme of grotesque and disgusting street art appearing over forthcoming weeks and months due to this lousy lady.

Margaret Hodge might wish to move abroad?
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=13833

[paul wright]

Every Labour woman minister has always appeared as an obsessive perverted freak. Hodge no more than most. The New Labour women under Gordon Brown are obsessional mind control beings, somehow more than the men - more in repulsiveness terms.
I'm not mysogenist but how would a Jacgui Smith take you?
With a very poor regard

[Freedomsdefender]

One can only hope that the authorities pursue this to the bitter end but don't hold your breath, this latest incident is just another piece of evidence about systematic abuse of the most vulnerable kids in society going back generations. Readers may like to look elsewhere on the forum for dunblane for instance also Kinkora boys home in northern Ireland (check correct spelling) also recent revalations in the usa on the same abuse. Private eye did good work on this , but it seems to be endemic in society.

[Caz]

My understanding is that this behavior is actively encouraged. And that it is used to blackmail people.

[PaulStott]

The extent of what happened in Jersey was known - and covered up - for years.

Notes From The Borderland's Gary Matthews was quoted in The telegraph last week on the long history of cover ups in Jersey:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/29/njerse y429.xml

[Thermate911]

[TonyGosling]

PAEDOPHILE ABUSE AMONG JERSEY POLITICIANS

John Martin | 13.03.2008 00:43 | Indymedia | Repression | Social Struggles | South Coast | World

It has been well known among indigenous islanders that the most senior politicians, most senior lawyers and police 'enjoyed' an immunity from prosecution as Freemasons within the island of Jersey - the largest of the Channel Islands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyuhhH2g5lY

Since Freemasonry and its secret rituals took over in Jersey as the only way to secure power - the link between paedophila and power has gone hand in hand.

Senator Wilfred Krichefski and so many senior politicans, senior law officers, senior advocates, and police witrhin the States of Jersey police are Freemasons. Virtualy all the male politicians in the States of Jersey government are Freemasons.

So many of the most senior politicians in Jersey continue to be Freemasons. It is the only way to political office in Jersey.

Jersey is one of the most corrupt democracies in the British Isles today. It is rotten to the core.

The unelected Bailiff [appointed by the Queen - as a 'puppet'] is head of the judiciary in Jersey but he also sits - most undemocratically - as the 'speaker' of the parliament and (as has been evidenced over the radio and witnessed in practice in a way of exercising blatant bias) orders elected Senators when and who can speak and who cannot speak in parliament. In the Christmas message, the unrepresentative and (to non brethren or non Freemasons) the hostile Bailiff - Sir Philip Bailhache - another senior Freemason - who does not care one jot for upholding the law when it comes to supporting his brethren Freemasons - ordered the most senior Senator - Senator Stuart Syvret - to immediately shut up or if the democratically elected Senator continued to talk in the Jersey Parliament about paedophilia, the Bailiff promised to immediately prorogue and dissolve the island's assembly with immediate effect.

Ironically, those senior Senators who are Freemasons are in absolute control of the crown island of Jersey - the Crown possession - and they have agreed to introduce a totally undemocratic Goods & Sales Tax (GST) that would hit all islanders and allow the money men who launder money in the island to avoid the consequences of taxation - as they avoid the consequences of fraud and investigation when HMG defence contracts are involved with a wealthy oil producing exporting country. Once the GST is in place, the evidence indicates that the Chief Minister intends to resign and emigrate to a country with a more favourable climate, where fellow Freemasons will support his opulent style of life and where practising Freemasonry where satanic abuse and immunity from prosecution is ensured for fellow brethren of the Scottish and York rites.

Wake up World - the Freemasons are destroying our democracy and they have corruptred our laws. As Freemasons have sworn to protect their b****** brethren who are destroying our laws whilst the b****** protect their brerhren at our expense and comtinue abusing our children - the paedo politicians of Jersey. The judges of Jersey are nothing but evil Satanists.

140+ letters of complaint to Lenny Harper - the deputy chief of police warning him that if he continuesw he might have an accident and the police will not consider a charge of perverting the course of justice - look to that evil corrupt Bailiff and the evil sadists whom he protects at every turn.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/03/393628.html

[TonyGosling]

Police find two MORE dungeons at former Jersey children's home
Last updated at 20:58pm on 25th March 2008

Two more torture chambers have been discovered at the Jersey care home where human remains were found last month.

It brings the number of dungeons discovered beneath the former care home to four.



Search teams have already excavated two chambers at Haut de la Garenne where shackles and a blood-spattered concrete bath were found beside a wooden beam bearing the haunting message, "I've been bad 4 years and years".

Police have found two more dungeons at the former Haut de la Garenne children's home

Officers yesterday identified another two rooms with a similar layout hidden under the Victorian building.

Victims have described the cellars as "punishment rooms" where children were kept in solitary confinement, drugged, raped and flogged.

Senior investigating officer Lenny Harper said: "We have now established there are a further two rooms and we have received evidence from another victim over the last few days which tells of abuse in one of these."

He said items been recovered from the first two rooms tended to corroborate victims' claims of abuse.

The home was dubbed the House of Horrors after the remains of a child were found in a stairwell on February 23.



see also
I will uncover the truth

Related Articles
* I'll get justice for the Jersey children

He is the man investigating allegations of child abuse in Jersey after decades of secrecy. Crime Correspondent Deborah McAleese meets Ulster-born Deputy Police Chief Lenny Harper

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

A car crunches across the gravel driveway at Haut de la Garenne interrupting the sleepy hush that, after weeks of frenzied police and media activity, appears to have fallen upon this dreary and cheerless building.......
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article3551914.e ce