Six more bodies feared buried in Jersey home
Helen Pidd in Jersey and Steven Morris
The Guardian
Six more bodies may be buried at a former children's home in Jersey where a youngster's remains were found by detectives investigating allegations of widespread child abuse on the island, police said yesterday. The remains were found under a thick concrete floor inside the Victorian mansion, beside scraps of fabric, a button and what appeared to be a hair clip. It is believed the child's skull was among the remains found.
Yesterday Lenny Harper, the senior investigating officer, said a sniffer dog that found the first remains had identified six other potential burial sites in and around the home. Radar equipment had confirmed areas of interest and Harper said he could not rule out the possibility that "half a dozen" bodies might be found.
"There could be six, but it could be higher than that," he said.
The officer in charge of the case said bones were found on the premises around five years ago. At the time, it was assumed they were animal bones, but in the light of the new findings, the police hope to examine them - if they can find them again. "They have gone missing," said Harper.
The search at the former home, Haut de la Garenne, is expected to take several more weeks, and it will be at least a fortnight before the age and sex of the child whose remains have been found, and when he or she died, can be established.
Harper said identifying the child could be difficult, as the records relating to the home are not complete. Police have begun to sift missing people's reports going back almost half a century.
The discovery of the remains on Saturday came after Jersey police last Tuesday began a forensic search of the building, which is now a youth hostel. "We got information from three different sources that there may well be human remains here," said Harper, speaking outside the home in St Martin.
The abuse investigation, one of the biggest ever on the Channel island, began more than a year ago after an earlier inquiry into allegations of abuse connected to the Sea Cadet Corps on Jersey. Police spotted links between suspects in the Sea Cadet case and a number of institutions on Jersey, including Haut de la Garenne.
For 12 months officers worked covertly on the case before going public last November and appealing for any alleged victims of abuse to contact them.
Since then the police have taken statements from around 140 alleged victims who claim to have been abused while at Haut de la Garenne, as well as 40 suspects. Most of these suspects were "respected figures of the establishment" who worked at the home in "positions of responsibility", Harper said.
When the NSPCC joined the investigation, the children's charity received four times more calls in the first week than it had ever had when working on other British operations of this type. Calls came from as far away as Thailand, Germany and Australia, as well as the UK, Guernsey and Jersey itself. Two Jersey police officers are currently in Australia interviewing alleged victims.
The allegations date back to the 1940s and up to 1986, when the home was closed, but the bulk of complainants claim they were abused in the 1960s, said Harper. "Allegations range from physical assaults right through to rape. It is difficult to envisage more horrific crimes than some of those that are alleged to have been carried out here," he said.
So far one man has been charged with three indecent assaults on girls under the age of 16, allegedly committed while he worked at Haut de la Garenne, which featured as a police station in the television detective series Bergerac.
However the police yesterday stressed that the man was not suspected of any other crimes, and was not linked to the remains discovered at the weekend.
Jersey senator Stuart Syvret, 42, told the Guardian he had spoken to two men, now in their 50s and 60s, who claim to have been savagely physically abused at the home. "They said it was standard practice for staff to punch children in their heads if they walked with their shoulders slumped, and children were routinely beaten with birch canes," he said.
Syvret, a former health and social services minister on Jersey, claims there was a "culture of cover-up and concealment" within the island's government, the States of Jersey. He said: "There has been a long-running systematic failure of child protection on the island." He said since the police investigation began he had heard of abuse dating back to the end of the second world war and right up to the 1990s at Haut de la Garenne and other homes.
In December, Syvret used his Christmas address to the states assembly as father of the house to claim that a blind eye had been turned to abuse for years. "It became clear", he said, "that what we were facing was something far worse than the occasional isolated instance of abuse. What Jersey had tolerated in its midst was a culture of disregard." He claims he was ousted as a minister because he raised awkward questions about child abuse.
Concerns about how children are treated in Jersey continue to be raised today. An inquiry is under way after a social worker, Simon Bellwood, claimed that as recently as 2006, a "grand prix system" was employed at the Greenfield secure unit. Children were on one of four levels - qualifier, grid, track and pits - according to behaviour. In the "pits" category, for repeated bad behaviour, they would spend up to 24 hours a day in a cell.
Bellwood told the Guardian yesterday that the sort of "checks and balances" found on the mainland were not in force on Jersey, which has its own government. The island, is a leading offshore financial centre and home to many rich and famous people attracted by its favourable tax regime. Privately, politicians are afraid that the child abuse inquiry may tarnish its image and affect tourism, one of Jersey's main industries.
After Saturday's discovery, the island's chief minister, senator Frank Walker, said: "It is imperative that children are safe in Jersey and I believe that today they are. It is, however, clear that this may not always have been the case. Although we can't right the wrongs of the past, we will do everything in our power to assist the police in seeking out the person or persons responsible."
The youth hostel now based at Haut de la Garenne was closed when the police investigation began, with a small number of residents forced to leave.
Timeline: Haut de la Garenne
1867 The industrial school "for young people of the lower classes of society and neglected children" was built at St Martin in the east of Jersey. Later it became known as Haut de la Garenne.
1986 The home was closed and transformed into a 100-bed youth hostel.
Late 80s and early 90s Adults connected to Jersey's Sea Cadet corps were arrested by police for sexual offences against young cadets. A number were convicted.
Autumn 2006 Police noticed links between victims of the Sea Cadet corps cases and some island institutions. They begin to make discreet inquiries and found victims of alleged sexual abuse and mistreatment among ex-residents of Haut de la Garenne.
November 2007 Police go public with their findings and more than 140 potential victims come forward. They begin looking at up to 40 suspects. Allegations span up to six decades.
December 2007 The States of Jersey, the island's government, is accused of tolerating a "culture of disregard" in its children's homes by the senator and former health minister, Stuart Syvret.
January 2008 A man is charged with allegedly indecently assaulting three girls under 16 between 1969 and 1979, when they were at Haut de la Garenne. Police have distanced him from the current search.
Tuesday February 19 Information from three people the police had spoken to as part of their abuse inquiry prompts officers to begin to dig at Haut de la Garenne.
Saturday morning The body of a child is found at the home after a sniffer dog detects remains through several inches of concrete. It will take several weeks for the gender of the body, and how long it had been there, to be established.
Yesterday Police reveal that up to six other bodies may be found.