Judge and lawyer slam Harper for whipping up media frenzy

A SENIOR judge has branded former deputy Jersey police chief Lenny Harper’s media activities as he led the Haut de la Garenne investigation as ‘extraordinary’.

The international publicity generated by press conferences at the former children’s home ‘whipped up a frenzy of interest in … what turned out to be unfounded suggestions of multiple murders and torture in secret cellars under a building’, said Royal Court Commissioner Sir Christopher Pitchers as he rejected a pre-trial claim that men charged in the historical child abuse inquiry could not receive a fair trial because of the worldwide publicity.

It was also claimed that Mr Harper, who gave near-daily conferences while detectives and scientists dug for evidence at the St Martin home, had discussed a book deal and had meetings with a News of the World reporter.

Now retired and living in Scotland, Mr Harper has denied a claim that he was told by an archaeologist that a fragment of material found there and presented as ‘potential human remains’ predated the building.

It is claimed he was told this soon after it had been found.

Mr Harper said that it was ‘rubbish’ for the defence lawyers to have claimed that their clients would not get a fair trial.

‘None of the trials features any evidence about teeth or bones. Try and find a statement where these are mentioned,’ he said.

In his view, the judgment of the legal establishment seemed strangely at odds with how journalists remembered it