Jersey home no charnel-house

The Australian

LONDON: The new head of a police investigation into alleged child abuse at a children's home on the island of Jersey said last night no murders had taken place in the sprawling former Victorian school.

Deputy chief officer David Warcup expressed "much regret" over what he said were inaccurate briefings by his predecessor on the Channel Island.

Mr Warcup said former top officer Lenny Harper had been wrong to suggest children may have been killed and dismembered at the home at Haut de laGarenne.

"There is no suggestion there has been murder or any bodies destroyed," Mr Warcup said.

"It is very unfortunate and I have much regret that information has been given by police that was not strictly accurate."

His colleague Detective Superintendent Michael Gradwell described as "wrong" suggestions that cellars at the site had been used as punishment chambers where victims were drugged, beaten, raped and kept in solitary confinement.

Mr Gradwell said the rooms were "just cellars".

In July, Mr Harper said his team had found the remains of at least five children at the site but would struggle to establish when they dated from. He said they were aged between four and 11.

This came in addition to 65 milk teeth and more than 100 bone fragments -- including one from a child's leg and another from inside an ear -- found there, plus at least six witness statements.

Mr Gradwell said last night the bones that had been found dated "from 1470 to 1670".

He said of the teeth: "It is difficult to understand why no adult teeth have been found if this was a suspicious find."

The Haut de la Garenne facility opened in 1867 as an industrial school and later served as a children's home.

An item discovered in February and initially thought to be a piece of a child's skull "was more likely a part of a coconut" from the Victorian era.

The probe is looking at alleged abuse on the island between the 1960s and the 1980s, when Haut de la Garenne closed. Three people have been charged and are awaiting trial.

"The purpose of today is to say there is a child abuse inquiry but in terms of Haut de la Garenne, there was no murder," Mr Gradwell said.

Mr Harper, who retired in August, defended his actions in London's the Daily Telegraph.

"When we found bone fragments and teeth in a home where we were investigating alleged abuse, what did people expect us to do? Ignore it?" he said.

"You wouldn't find any police force in the country which would have kept that quiet."

Senator Stuart Syvret, a former Jersey health minister who has campaigned for transparency over the allegations, accused the police of trying to "rubbish" MrHarper's work in order to justify abandoning some aspects of the probe.

Detectives spent months searching the Victorian building earlier this year and claimed to have made a series of grisly discoveries that pointed to murder, including shackles, bone fragments, a bloodstained bathtub and dozens of children's teeth.

More than 100 people claim they were abused by staff at Hautde la Garenne, which closed in 1986.

Police have been investigating decades-old abuse allegations at the home since 2006, but the inquiry became public only late last year, when police set up a confidential telephone hot line for victims to report abuse.

Soon, police were briefing reporters on their discoveries, sparking lurid reports of the "house of horrors" inside the sprawling structure.

Jersey is one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France. It is not part of the United Kingdom but is a territory owned by the British monarchy.