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Jersey care home abuse inquiry

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November 2006 Jersey police investigating sexual abuse allegations at a sea cadet unit launch an island-wide inquiry after discovering the victims had allegedly been assaulted at Haut de la Garenne, a former children's care home which is now a youth hostel, and at other institutions. The allegations eventually span several decades and involve in excess of 160 victims and 40 suspects. The inquiry remained secret for 12 months.

August 2007 The Jersey senator Stuart Syvret loses his position as health minister after voicing concerns over the punishment regime at a separate care home, Greenfields. A social worker at Greenfields, Simon Bellwood, claims he lost his job for criticising the home's regime.

January 30 2008 Gordon Claude Wateridge, 76, a former warder at the home, becomes the first person to be charged in connection with the investigation. He appears at Jersey magistrates court charged with indecently assaulting three girls under 16.

February 23 Specialist investigators begin excavating Haut de la Garenne. Remains are found, including what is thought to be a fragment of a child's skull, buried under a concrete floor.

February 25 Deputy chief officer Lenny Harper announces police will investigate government agencies over failures to address long-standing claims of child abuse at institutions on the island. The Youth Hostel Association releases a statement stressing that the alleged incidents pre-date the building's use as a youth hostel by two decades.

The police search focuses on a bricked-up cellar where a dog has identified a number of "hotspots". Ten more alleged victims have come forward since the story appeared in the media, and the NSPCC says it has received 63 calls from adults reporting allegations of childhood physical, sexual and emotional abuse in Jersey. It has referred 27 cases to the police.

February 26 Peter Hannaford, a former resident at Haut de la Garenne, claims children were repeatedly raped there. The 59-year-old says he was abused almost every night. Older children at the home were often responsible for abuse, he says.

February 27 Police break into a bricked-up cellar at Haut de la Garenne and later discover a series of four underground "punishment rooms". A specialist sniffer dog trained to recognise corpses shows an "extremely strong reaction" in the cellar.

February 28 Detectives say they have discovered "finds of some significance". One is later revealed as a concrete bath matching a description given by a victim.

February 29 A trapdoor is discovered leading to the cellar where victims say they suffered abuse. Shackles found in an underground chamber correlate with accounts given by victims claiming to have been beaten and sexually abused in the room.

March 1 Police say they believe there are four secret underground "punishment rooms".

March 2 Christine Bowker, who volunteered at Haut de la Garenne in the early 1970s, tells how she saw children "frozen with fear" and encountered a "wall of silence". She says she left due to concerns over the conduct of some of the staff.

March 3 Graffiti found scrawled on wooden post in one of the secret chambers reads: "I've been bad 4 years and years." News emerges that staff at another unnamed care home had been suspended over allegations of a sex attack on a resident in weeks before Christmas last year.

March 4 The BBC is asked to provide an episode of the Jersey-based detective series Bergerac that was filmed at Haut de la Garenne, after false graves dug for the programme mislead officers into thinking bodies may have been buried nearby.

March 6 Tina Blee, a former resident at the care home, reportedly claims she was abused by the headmaster, Colin Tilbrook, who was also her foster parent. Tilbrook, who ran the home during the 1960s, has since died.

March 7 Traces of blood are found inside a concrete bath in the same underground chamber where the suspected skull fragment was found. Officers say 100 people claim they were abused at the home and at least 25 people are suspects, including senior members of staff and a former politician.

March 25 Two more "punishment rooms" are found.

March 27 The Jersey government votes for a public inquiry to be held into the allegations of decades of child abuse on the island. Once the police investigation is complete, a Committee of Inquiry will be established to investigate any issues which remain unresolved in all care homes for children on the island from 1945 to 2000.

April 1 Police begin accessing the final pair of the four underground chambers. The first pictures of the second room are released, showing graffiti including a large letter K in black on a wall. The rest of the word has been covered with whitewash.

April 8 Scientific analysis of bone fragments shows they date from the time when the building operated as a care home.

April 16 Officers excavate two pits dug behind boy's dormitory at the care home by a former resident. They find one of them is filled with lime, which can be used to speed up decomposition of buried remains.

April 18 "Bloodstained items" are found in two of the underground chambers.

April 22 Children's teeth and more bone fragments are discovered in the chambers

April 30 Claude Donnelly, 68, from Jersey, appears in court as part of the wider sexual abuse inquiry on the island. He is charged with raping a 12-year-old girl between 1971 and 1974.

May 12 Police confirm they have found bone fragments and five teeth in a secret underground chamber.

May 18 Scientists analysing the original skull fragment say it is almost certainly not bone but wood or coconut shell instead.

May 21 Fragments of bone found sawn and burned suggest a homicide has taken place, Lenny Harper claims.

May 22 Examination of milk teeth found in cellar shows they could not have come out naturally before death.

May 29 Michael Aubin, 45, is arrested in Southampton and flown to Jersey to become the third person charged in connection with the allegations. He appears in court on June 2 accused of sodomy and indecent assault on boys on the island between 1977 and 1980. Police say it is now "beyond doubt" that the remains of more than one child had been found, as tests show two of the teeth come from different children.

June 2 Law officers on the island create a sex offenders register for the first time.

June 13 A 50-year-old former police officer is arrested in connection with the inquiry and then released without charge after questioning.

June 25 A 70-year-old man and a 69-year-old woman are arrested and then released by police, despite a senior officer stating there was enough evidence to charge them. Police say they have recovered a total of 52 teeth and 30 fragments of bone from the cellar complex. The Friends of Jersey Careleavers Association is established and demands an independent inquiry into the abuse allegations led by the UK mainland.

July 9 Lenny Harper says a second world war bunker on the east of the island will be searched for more evidence of child abuse. It is announced that David Warcup, the deputy chief constable of Northumbria, will take over as deputy chief officer when Harper retires in August 2008. Police have spoken to 97 people who have made allegations of abuse and there are more than 100 suspects of which 18 are main suspects, Harper says.

July 31 Harper tells the BBC that police have found the partial remains of at least five children aged between four and 11, but it is unlikely to lead to a murder investigation because experts are unable to identify when the youngsters died. Campaigners call on the UK government to intervene. Former Jersey health minister Stuart Syvret says the "only hope" for action is a UK-led probe.

August 1 A murder investigation could still be launched if further forensic tests are successful, Harper says.

August 22 After retiring from his role in charge of the investigation, Harper slams the delays and opposition he says he faced from the island's legal system.

August 26 Compensation claims by abuse victims are being blocked by the island's government, a lawyer representing a group of 12 claims. A couple arrested as part of the historic abuse inquiry will not face charges because of a lack of evidence, the island's attorney general says.

August 27 Det Supt Michael Gradwell, one of the UK's most experienced detectives, is to take control of the inquiry, it is announced.

September 16 Harper says the ability to secure justice for the victims has been "sacrificed".

October 24 Two men appear in court in relation to the abuse inquiry. Wateridge denies 17 counts involving five victims between 1970 and 1974. The case is adjourned to November, with a trial expected next April. Aubin, now 46, reserves his plea and his case is adjourned to November 26 for a pre-trial review.

November 12 New police chief David Warcup rules out murder and says he feels "much regret" at inaccurate information given by his predecessors.

2008 Nov 12