Police discover shackles in Jersey abuse case home

Sources say find tallies with victims' accounts

Second underground 'punishment room' sought

Helen Pidd in Jersey

The Guardian

Shackles were found yesterday in one of the underground chambers found hidden under two concrete floors at the Jersey care home where a skull was found on Saturday.

Police sources said the find was significant, and that it matched accounts given by many of the victims, who said they had been sexually and physically abused while in solitary confinement in "punishment rooms" underneath Haut de la Garenne home.

A bath has already been found in the room, which was also mentioned by many of the 160-plus victims who have reported abuse to the authorities. Police believe there is a second, adjoining, underground room that they have yet to break into.

"They are items that witnesses have said were in there when offences were committed against them," said Lenny Harper, the officer in charge of the case. "They certainly help corroborate accounts given by victims."

A search dog trained to find human remains started barking when it entered the room earlier this week. The dog's "extremely strong reaction" was the same as when it helped find a child's remains buried under inches of concrete at the house last weekend.

Harper said the room had unrendered walls and would take weeks to search because of the amount of dust and rubble that would need to be carefully moved and sifted through.

Police yesterday also began excavating a third site in a field to the right of Haut de la Garenne. Harper said the dig began because of "unspecific information which related to items that somebody has said might be out there".

When asked if that meant more remains, he said yes. The area measured approximately 15-20 yards by 10 yards, he said. The sniffer dog which led police to the skull over the weekend had shown a strong reaction when led to the area.

It also emerged yesterday that a number of employees of the States of Jersey parliament had worked at Haut de la Garenne.

One was named by the States press office yesterday as Mario Lundy, the current director of education on the island. There is no suggestion that he is among the 40 suspects in the abuse inquiry.

The island's chief minister, Senator Frank Walker, said yesterday: "There are no States of Jersey employees that have been subject to any police investigation. Had there been anything significant that they were involved in, anything the police found suspicious, that would not be the case."

He added: "You should not conclude that [the States employees who worked at Haut de la Garenne] were involved in any sort of abuse."

At a press conference yesterday Walker rejected the suggestion that the States of Jersey owed an apology to the victims of child abuse on the island.

It has emerged that bones found in the building when it was being converted into a youth hostel five years ago were not all classified as animal bones.

"There were some that were unidentified by the pathologist that examined them," said Harper. None of the bones can currently be located.

Detectives launched an inquiry into Haut de la Garenne after accusations of violent and sexual abuse dating back to the 1960s.

The main focus of the investigation centres on allegations about events in the 1970s and 1980s.

Since the discovery of a skull on Saturday officers have not ruled out finding more bodies.

Harper said he was confident there would be arrests and prosecutions in due course.

He did not believe the abuse at the home was carried out by an organised "ring".

He said: "The abuse was spread over so many years and there are a succession of people coming through there in positions of responsibility ... but it was not a totally organised ring as the years went on."