Jersey abuse case: police rule out murder at Haut de la Garenne

No children were murdered at the Haut de la Garenne former care home, police investigating alleged abuse in Jersey believe

Nigel Bunyan in Jersey and Gordon Rayner

Nine months ago the island’s Deputy Chief Officer, Lenny Harper, suggested that six bodies could have been buried under the building. Senior detectives are expected to announce today that dozens of burnt bone fragments found in cellars are “historic” and could be hundreds of years old.

Mr Harper, who retired in August, attracted international media attention when he hinted that children may have been murdered, dismembered and cremated in a furnace below the Victorian building, where 65 milk teeth were also discovered.

But in a humiliating turnaround, his investigation is likely to be criticised by his successor, David Warcup, who will announce at a press conference today that the bone fragments are older than the building itself, meaning no children could have been murdered there.

Mr Warcup’s findings will also call into question the role of Jersey’s Chief Officer, Graham Power, who oversaw the £7 million child abuse investigation.

The news will restart a row between the island’s police and politicians, and is likely to be seized on by Mr Harper’s critics, including a minister who ridiculed him with the nickname “Lenny Henry”.

At the height of the investigation Jersey’s establishment, notorious for a long-standing culture of secrecy, stood accused of orchestrating a cover-up of institutionalised child abuse.

In turn, Jersey’s Chief Minister, Frank Walker, accused a whistle-blower of “trying to shaft Jersey internationally” by drawing attention to the case.

Other members of the island’s parliament, the States of Jersey, suggested that the police were going down a blind alley.

Mr Harper, now living in Ayrshire, told The Daily Telegraph: “I have been saying for some time that the most likely outcome was that it would be impossible to date the bones accurately and so there would not be enough evidence to launch a homicide investigation.

‘‘When we found bone fragments and teeth in a home where we were investigating alleged abuse, what did people expect us to do?

“Ignore it? You won’t find any police force in the country which would have kept that quiet.

“From a very early stage everything we did was examined by the Acpo (Association of Chief Police Officers) homicide review group, which kept a close eye on the investigation.” The suggestion that children could have been murdered at Haut de la Garenne, which closed in 1986, was first made by Mr Harper in February, when he announced that what appeared to be part of a child’s skull had been found underneath a floor at the home.

Forensic tests later established that the “skull” was more likely to be a piece of wood or coconut shell.

More than 100 former residents at Haut de la Garenne have alleged that they were sexually or physically abused.