Police make 'significant' finds at Jersey care home

Haroon Siddique

Police officers work on the investigation at the Haut de la Garenne Youth Hostel near St. Martin in Jersey. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Police searching for more human remains at a former Jersey children's home where a child's skull was found said today they had discovered "a couple of finds of some significance".

Deputy police chief Lenny Harper said the objects uncovered in the basement of the Haut de la Garenne building, which he would not identify, helped "corroborate the accounts given by witnesses" in an inquiry into widespread allegations of child abuse. But he added that there were "no statements from people saying these items were used against them".

Harper said police had been told about the existence of a third underground room in the cellar but would be concentrating efforts on a first room, which the police gained access to yesterday and where the two items were found, at least until the end of the week.

Officers would not be attempting to enter the second room until the first had been cleared, he said.

Haut de la Garenne, now a youth hostel, is at the centre of a major child abuse investigation on the island. Police say there are 40 suspects and "well in excess" of 160 victims, going back to the 1960s.

Victims have claimed the underground rooms were used to abuse children.

Callers to a police hotline have detailed allegations of being drugged, beaten and raped at the home.

A sniffer dog gave an "extremely strong reaction" to an area in the first chamber when it was opened up yesterday, according to Harper.

The cellar is about 3.5 sq metres (37.6 sq feet) and 2.5m (8ft) high. Police are searching another five sites in and around the building, which was converted into a hostel after the home closed in 1986.

Police have revealed that people in "positions of authority in the public sector at the time of the alleged abuse" are among the suspects.

Harper said officers from within his force were being investigated in relation to how they had handled past complaints.

He said the police search at the site would take another several more weeks.

The island's former health and social services minister, Stuart Syvret, today repeated his allegations that child abuse on the island had been covered up.

"What these victims suffered – the abuse, the betrayals, the cover-ups and the concealment – proves the Jersey establishment spin to be the disgusting and festering pack of lies it is," he wrote on his blog.