Jersey abuse inquiry: Remains of five children found, police reveal - but murder charges unlikely

Officers told of some victims dragged from beds

Investigation hampered by inability to date bones

Ian Cobain

The Guardian

A forensics services manager at a second world war bunker near Haut de la Garenne on Jersey. Photograph: Matthew Hotton/PA

The Jersey care home investigation into child abuse reached a pivotal moment yesterday when police disclosed they had found the remains of up to five children after a painstaking dig at the Haut de la Garenne institution.

As officers revealed that 65 teeth and bone fragments came from victims aged between four and 11, it emerged that police had first begun to fear children had been murdered when people who had been abused at the home told of other residents being dragged away at night and never seen again.

"Among the victims were a few who said that children had been dragged from their beds at night screaming and had then disappeared," according to a police summary of the investigation. "Two others said they had knowledge of human remains at the location but were not specific. A local advocate also came to police and said he had a client who knew there were human remains buried at the home."

The summary says that burnt clothing, toys and bed sheets have also been recovered. According to pathologists, most of the 65 teeth found in the cellars beneath Haut de la Garenne were not milk teeth, but had come from corpses of up to five children. Police searchers also found bone from a child's ear and a child's tibia.

Both pieces had been cut and burned before being concealed; they had then been moved, at a date no later than the early 1970s.

Lenny Harper, Jersey's deputy police chief, concedes it is unlikely that a formal murder investigation will be opened in parallel with the child sex abuse inquiry running for the past 28 months.

Not only have police been unable to identify any named child from the remains, but extensive carbon dating has failed to pinpoint their age. First tests gave a bracket for some of the bone fragments as broad as 1650 to 1950.

However, the pathologists' opinion that the teeth were not from living children, combined with cuts and scorch marks on the bones, the attempt to conceal them, and the subsequent move, all lead detectives to conclude that several children may have been murdered at Haut de la Garenne.

Harper will not completely rule out a murder investigation, however. "If the dating remains as inconclusive as what we have had so far, a homicide inquiry is unlikely," he said yesterday. "If the dating is more specific, a homicide inquiry is a possibility.

"We cannot get away from the fact that we have found the remains of at least five children there."

Yesterday's announcement is thought to intend to silence critics, among the island's political elite and among some London-based journalists, who have questioned the failure of the police to produce any bodies. Harper indicated several months ago that he was convinced children's remains had been concealed at the home.

It is thought the announcement was also intended to ease any local political pressure on the man who takes over the investigation next month. Harper retires at the end of this month and is to be replaced by David Warcup, currently deputy chief constable of Northumbria.

Haut de la Garenne ceased to house a children's home in 1986 and was a youth hostel when the historic child sex abuse investigation began in April 2006, initially as an inquiry into the island's sea cadets.

According to the case summary: "The attitude of the Sea Cadet authorities of that time caused great concern. Accordingly, police began to examine a number of previous cases, and during this review were continually referred to abuse which had allegedly taken place at Haut de La Garenne."

Police at first concealed the inquiry, for fear suspects might intimidate witnesses or destroy evidence, and went public last November. Scores of people came forward claiming to have been raped and beaten at the home, leading police to excavate four cellars, referred to as "punishment rooms" by some victims, where they found a large bloodstained bath as well as the teeth and bones.

While nobody may be charged in connection with the deaths, police are looking into 97 allegations of abuse in Jersey dating back to the early 1960s. They have more than 100 suspects, and have indicated that some could be described as members of the island's political and social elite.

Six people have been arrested; three, including a former warden at Haut de la Garenne, have been charged with child abuse offences and have appeared in court. Three others have been released on bail pending further inquiries.

Harper said yesterday that a new victim had come forward in recent days to make allegations against one of the 18 priority suspects.