Bergerac 'link to Jersey search'

Disturbance at a site in Jersey, where police are searching for human remains, may have been caused by filming of the BBC series Bergerac, police have said.

A hi-tech military radar is being used at the former children's home at Haut de la Garenne where fragments of a skull were found on 23 February.

The former home is part of a major child abuse inquiry allegedly involving 160 victims over three decades.

The building featured as the police station in the 1980s detective drama.

One episode involved a fake graveyard being built in one of the fields.

Police say the radar is able to identify any suspicious and disturbed earth and it has revealed a number of hotspots in the grounds.

The police said they had been aware "for some time" of the building's appearance in the series, and stressed it has had many uses over the years.

A police spokesman said: "That is not to say that the locations that have been highlighted are just because of the filming."

The spokesman said the police were following up on witness accounts.

"The survey team were aware of the situation when they started and we are also acting on human intelligence."

The excavation in a field at the back of the building has uncovered a number of animal bones but no human remains.

On Monday police announced they had found a few items at the same site that could be fragments of bone and said a sniffer dog trained to find human remains gave a "strong reaction" to them.

The possible bone fragments have been sent to the UK mainland for tests.

Police are investigating the claims of alleged victims who say they were abused at the home in St Martin in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

Police have so far not ruled out the possibility that that the skull may pre-date the period under investigation and that the person may not have died unlawfully.

The search has been extended to the building's cellar and grounds. Police also suspect there may be four bricked-up chambers in the cellar.

So far experts excavating the site have uncovered a set of shackles and a shallow bath. The shackles had been found on the floor but may once have been fastened to the wall.

Police have said that the bath and shackles corroborate some of the allegations made by alleged victims.

Work breaking in to the second underground chamber is expected to start next week.

Police are also investigating claims that a man who spent time at Haute de la Garenne was abused in two States-run care homes in Guernsey.

Guernsey-born Carl Denning, 49, claims that abuse continued to be part of both his life and that of other children.