Children 'also abused on Guernsey'

David Batty

A former resident of a Jersey care home at the centre of a child abuse investigation said today children were assaulted on a second Channel Island.

Carl Denning, who was a resident at the former children's home Haut de la Garenne on Jersey, said he and other children were punched and beaten by staff at a care home in Guernsey during the 1970s.

Denning, now 49 and married with four children, said the physical abuse he and other children suffered while in care on Guernsey was covered up by the authorities.

"There was definitely abuse going on in Guernsey, not to the same level as on Jersey but it was there," said Denning, who lives in North Wales.

"There was one bloke, he's dead now so he can't be brought to justice, he used to punch us and beat us. So did other staff.

"It wasn't sexual abuse but it was violent and there were other boys who suffered. But no one would listen. I feel like the authorities really didn't believe what went on."

He stayed in two homes on Guernsey in the 1970s and said the abuse took place while he was in the first home.

A spokesman for the Haut de la Garenne investigation said any reports of abuse on Guernsey would be handled by police on that island.

He said: "It would be passed on to Guernsey but if the allegations are connected, then the constabularies would work together."

A spokesman for Guernsey police said they had not received any reports of abuse but any such claims would be investigated fully.

More than 160 people claim they were physically and sexually abused at Haut de la Garenne during the past 40 years.

Police excavating the site have found a child's skull buried under a stairwell and a network of secret underground chambers where victims said they were drugged and raped by both staff and other children at the home.

A specialist military team is using hi-tech radar equipment to search for more bodies at the site.

More than 40 suspects have been identified in the abuse inquiry and a specialist police team has been based at the port in case any of them attempt to flee the island.

Most of the alleged abuse is understood to have taken place in the 1970s and 1980s.