Children's home from hell: more grim secrets

February 29, 2008

A man who was sexually abused at a children's home on the Channel Island of Jersey, where police are searching for bodies, says two friends hung themselves after being raped there.

Carl Denning has also told the British newspaper The Sun how a boy died mysteriously in a sick bay used by staff and their paedophile friends.

Mr Denning says he suffered sexual abuse at the Haut de la Garenne home in St Martin, Jersey  where police have found three dungeons allegedly used for torture  from the age of five until he was eight.

He said two of his friends who also suffered sexual abuse killed themselves at the home, but staff at the home did nothing.

``The suicides were never spoken of. No one saw the police turn up to investigate them,'' the 49-year-old told The Sun.

``If you asked, the staff would just say `It's been dealt with'. It was as if they had just been swept under the carpet.''

Some went public this week, recalling how they were repeatedly drugged, beaten, raped and subjected to sadistic games by staff.

Jersey police said on Thursday they had made "significant" finds while excavating the site in the search for human remains.

Police dug up a child's skull and remains near the building at the weekend.

Investigators also managed to tunnel into an underground room and began the task of sifting through rubble and sand dumped there.

Deputy chief police officer Lenny Harper said on Thursday: "We have made a couple of finds of some significance which tend to provide corroboration for some of the allegations that we have received about offences that were committed in the cellar."

Mr Harper said they were "physical items", not household objects.

He refused to identify the objects and declined to comment on media reports that officers had found shackles and a bath in the cellar.

"They are significant because they are items that victims told us were there in the cellar ... when the offences were committed," he told a news conference. "They certainly help corroborate accounts given by victims."

Police have already established the existence of a second bricked-up room and Mr Harper confirmed that a witness told police of a third underground chamber. Police have begun excavating to find the third site.

"We're looking at the possibility of that at the moment," he said.

"We haven't found it but bearing in mind that we have directed all of our resources to the areas that we have examined, it's not going to go away."

Police would focus their efforts on the first room over the next few days before they attempted to gain access to the second cellar, Mr Harper said.

Conditions underground meant it was a slow process which would take some time, he added.

Police have said a sniffer dog trained to detect human remains had an "extremely strong reaction" in one area of the first cellar, similar to when it located the child's skull.

London's Telegraph newspaper reported details of two pits located in the grounds of the home.

"They were originally designed to store excess rainwater and could hold up to 30,000 litres. Each one is accessed by a trap door, known as an inspection hatch," the paper said.

"The pits appear on three separate 2000/1 architect drawings for the conversion of the home into a youth hostel, which are stored at the States of Jersey planning department."

The child abuse investigation at Haut de la Garenne involves more than 160 alleged victims over a 40-year period until the mid-1980s.

The investigation extends as far as Australia and Thailand, where witness statements have been taken.

Earlier this week, a Jersey Police spokeswoman said officers flew to Australia this month as part of their inquiries.

It was unknown where the officers had gone to or how many people they were intending to speak to.

"Two officers are over there at the moment speaking to people," the spokeswoman said.

Police have received more than 70 calls since the human remains were discovered.

Mr Harper said many had only come forward after seeing others do so because they feared the repercussions.

The island's former health and social services minister has claimed he was sacked from Jersey's governing council because he tried to expose "systematic" abuse of children.

Mr Harper told reporters he had "no evidence whatsoever" of either a government or institutional cover-up, but he said child protection organisations "didn't deal with the matters as well as they should have done".

The case has shocked the beach-fringed British crown dependency which was once a mainly agricultural island and holiday destination but has since become an international offshore banking centre.

Reverend Canon Dr Peter Williams, who led a special service in Saint Martin du Gouray church near the former home this week, said it was unfair to rush to conclusions.

"There were a lot of dedicated people (working) in the home," he said.

A 60-year-old woman resident of Jersey, who asked not to be named, said: "We are really embarrassed by all this, especially because people here are not hiding anything. The situation is very sad."