Jersey forced to face its demons

Julia May

March 1, 2008

IT HAS been a disturbing few weeks in Britain. About 1pm each weekday, posters for the afternoon newspaper, the Evening Standard, appear on the streets of London.

Dramatic epithets have dominated: the Bridgend Suicides, the Suffolk Strangler, the Bus-Stop Stalker, and this week, simpler but creepier, Haut de la Garenne. It is unclear what label this former Victorian orphanage in Jersey will earn, given that "House of Horrors" is taken — forever associated with Fred and Rosemary West.

But Haut de la Garenne bears similarities to the other House of Horrors: stories of physical and sexual abuse of vulnerable youngsters, and the death of at least one child, perhaps at the hands of adults responsible for his or her care.

Since a small skull, scraps of clothing and a hair clip were found under a corridor last Saturday, sniffer dogs trained to detect human remains have shown interest in six other locations on the property.

A pair of shackles was found on Thursday in a cellar. Search teams uncovered the restraining device in a four-metre-square room where former residents have told police they were sent as punishment.

Phone calls from 70 former residents about the existence of a cellar led police to two bricked-up underground rooms that do not appear in the building's plans. Another phone call, on Wednesday night from an ex-staff member, led them to what is believed to be an underground chamber in a nearby field.

After examining the first cellar — in which a sniffer dog had an "extremely strong response" — police found an object, widely reported to be a bathtub, fixed to the ground.

Jersey police chief, Graham Power, said: "Children told of being kept in some deep, dark place and being brought out from time to time for the purposes of abuse."

Since November, 160 people have phoned a Jersey police hotline claiming to have suffered abuse at the hands of up to 40 identified suspects.

The Channel island of Jersey, a British Crown Dependency with its own government, 60 kilometres from the French coast, is best known for its gentle cows, creamy caramels and business-friendly tax laws. It is not subject to British law and has no political parties, but 53 independent senators, who make up the Jersey assembly.

Many people in Britain know the Haut de la Garenne building as the police station in the popular television drama Bergerac. During World War II, it was used by the Nazis as a signalling station when the Germans occupied Jersey.

Police launched an investigation in 2006 into allegations of widespread abuse of children on the island during the 1960s, '70s and '80s. The inquiry has led to some soul searching among Jersey's 90,000 residents, many of whom, it seems, turned a blind eye to the abuse.

Roley McMichael said when he was a boy growing up on the island, his father would make tongue-in-cheek threats to send him to the home if he misbehaved. "At the time, everybody knew it was a nasty place to be, and rumours were rife about what happened at the place," he said.

Reverend Lawrence Turner, whose parish church is near Haut de la Garenne, told The Independent: "Whistleblowing is not exactly the most popular activity round here.

"Word and rumour travel fast," he said. "But the darker side to that is that there is a real feeling we shouldn't wash our dirty laundry in public."

One woman, identified only as Pamela, branded the home a "pedophile's paradise", saying she was given heavy doses of valium and abused by male and female staff during her four years at the home in the early 1970s.

The 49-year-old mother of two says she was one of many children who were stripped naked and locked inside a tiny punishment cell for days on end. Children would cower in their beds while staff searched for their next victims, sometimes with an offer of cigarettes and alcohol in return for sexual favours.

"The things that happened there are indescribable — the most cruel sadistic and evil acts you could think of," Pamela said.

One man has broken the mould: a senator and former health minister, Stuart Syvret, has held daily media briefings, claiming the Government has covered up "systematic" child abuse in Jersey institutions.

He sent a dossier of evidence to the media, MPs and civil servants, which triggered an independent review of child services in Jersey last August. The man leading that inquiry, Andrew Williamson, will report next week. But assembly support for the review did not prevent Mr Syvret from being sacked in September, with his deputy alleging that his actions were putting children at risk.

Jersey's First Minister, Frank Walker, defended the government's record and accused Mr Syvret of trying to make political capital.

Behind this slanging match is a personal battle. Mr Syvret was Mr Walker's only challenger for First Minister in the 2005 Jersey elections.

But Mr Syvret is no longer alone. His claims were supported by Simon Bellwood, a social worker at a secure children's unit on Jersey who was sacked after speaking out against the institution's policy of putting children into solitary confinement. "I found Jersey's child-care system to be reactive, old-fashioned and historically underfunded," he said.

On Thursday, a group of Westminster MPs accused island officials of "concealment". The politicking has, at least, drawn attention to the plight of children in institutional care.

With AGENCIES

CYRIL TURNER, 48

"There were a lot of kids and there were always rumours that someone had run away. People tried to all the time.

"We were told a lot of them had run off and emigrated, which looking back was a bit odd.

"There were two staff there in particular that I was terrified of. We were quite often given dead arms and dead legs by the staff. I remember being frog marched around the place. If you were bad, you would get locked in a dark room with just bread and water."

PAMELA, 49

hat happened there are indescribable — the most cruel, sadistic, and evil acts you could think of. What makes it worse is that these acts were practised on very vulnerable and often troubled children who had … nobody to turn to for help.

"I remember one of the men who abused me being a big man who smelled sweaty and was often drunk. He touched me and I tried to fight him off.

"We all knew what was going on. There was nothing we could do for each other."

HISTORY OF THE HOSTEL MEMORIES OF ABUSE

• Built in 1867, Haut de la Garenne was originally known as the Industrial School for "young people of the lower classes of society and neglected children".
• By the turn of the century, it had become the Jersey Home for Boys and continued to operate as either an orphanage or school until closing in the mid-1980s.
• Four years ago, it reopened its doors as a 100-bed youth hostel after a £2.25 million ($A4.79 million) refurbishment.