Secret report 'shows more Jersey child abuse'

Simon de Bruxelles, in St Helier, and David Byers

A former Jersey government minister today released what he claimed was a secret report detailing child abuse allegations at a second institution on the island, as searches continued at a former children's home where human remains have been found.

Senator Stuart Syvret, the Health Minister until last summer, announced what he said was evidence of a "disgraceful" culture of cover-up, which saw the damning independent report, published in 2000, kept secret.

The announcement threatened to cause a rift within the Jersey establishment, however, with the island's Chief Minister, Senator Frank Walker, accusing Mr Syvret of trying to turn the abuse crisis into a political row. The island's Education Minister today vigorously denied the claims.

As the row intensified, police continued their high-profile search at Haut de la Garenne, the former children's home, which authorities believe could have seen one of Britain's worst ever child abuse scandals. Officers are now using sniffer dogs to focus their attention on a bricked up cellar.

At a press conference this morning, Senator Syvret issued copies of an unpublished 100-page report into a sexual abuse case at a second school in 1992, from which one teacher was prosecuted. He claimed it was clear evidence of establishment cover-up.

Naming the school and the people concerned, he said that an independent report into the scandal which had been drawn up by Stephen Sharp, the former chief education officer for Buckinghamshire, was deliberately kept secret by the authorities.

The secrecy surrounding the report meant that the head teacher of the school - who was accused of negligence for refusing to follow up complaints against the long-serving teacher - was allowed to resign with a handshake rather than being publicly exposed.

"I have been accused of having no evidence of a cover-up," Senator Syvret told reporters in St Helier. "This is powerful evidence."

He added: "This shows we can’t rely on prosecutions to happen when necessary. The overriding concern of the establishment is the image of Jersey - to prosecute people would be apocalyptically bad for the Jersey establishment."

The report said: "The most serious mistake made by the college was the handling of the 1992 disclosure by the pupil of abuse (by the teacher. The principal responsibility for this lies with the headmaster."

Earlier, Senator Syvret had told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that there had been a deliberate attempt by members of staff and governors to "humiliate and intimidate and force those boys" who made the allegations into retracting them.

"People must not necessarily, as bad as it is, be distracted by the Haut de la Garenne story because the real issue here is we are looking at multiple examples of abuse at multiple institutions over a period of decades and decades," he said.

"It's a continuum that we see. It's a culture of cover-up and concealment and, tragically, the recent evidence is just the latest manifestation of that."

However, his claim of a cover-up was denied today by Senator Mike Vibert, Jersey's Education Minister, who said he had reviewed the case at the school and the abuse was taken seriously.

"Once reported to the Education Department of the day, this incidence of abuse was taken seriously," he said. "The man responsible was successfully prosecuted and subsequently imprisoned.

"Following the prosecution, an independent report was commissioned to investigate the procedures followed by the school.

"The report made a number of recommendations and all have since been implemented."

Mr Vibert said the report was not published because the details within it could have led to the identification of the children involved.

The police child abuse investigation saw a dramatic development last Saturday, when the remains of a child were detected by a sniffer dog at Haut de la Garenne. Since then, police have identified six more sites of interest near the former children's home.

A helpline set up by the NSPCC has received 63 calls from adults claiming to have been abused when they were children on the island, and 27 of those have been referred to investigators.

This morning, it emerged that notorious Jersey paedophile Edward Paisnel used to visit the Haut de la Garenne centre dressed as Father Christmas to give the children toys and sweets. Paisnel, dubbed the Beast of Jersey, was jailed for 30 years in 1971 after being convicted of 13 counts of assault, rape and sodomy.

He lived in St Martin, close to Haut de la Garenne and, after the trial, his wife Joan wrote a book claiming Paisnel used to visit the care home to take gifts to the children, who he asked to call him "Uncle Ted".

Court reports from the time revealed that Paisnel, who died 13 years ago, avoided capture despite committing his crimes over ten years because he was a respected businessman, husband, and guardian of several foster children