November 12, 2008

The Haut de la Garenne Affair

The media frenzy about a ring of murdering paedophiles in Jersey turns out to be nonsense:

Detectives probing alleged abuse at a Jersey children's home have said no-one was murdered there and previously released evidence had been inaccurate.

The Deputy Chief Officer, David Warcup, said there was no evidence that any children had been murdered or bodies destroyed at the former home.

Police are investigating abuse claims centring on Haut de la Garenne home.

Former police chief Lenny Harper said he was "surprised" by the comments, which misrepresented what he had said.

Mr Warcup expressed "much regret" at "misleading" information released by his predecessor on items found at the property.

Detectives said only three of the bone fragments found could be human, and two of these were hundreds of years old.

Detective Superintendent Michael Gradwell then discredited a number of the claims made about the operation by the island's former deputy chief officer, Lenny Harper.

• After being examined by experts from the British Museum, a fragment thought to have been from a skull turned out to be a piece of Victorian coconut shell.

• "Shackles" found in rubble turned out to be "a rusty piece of metal", and there was no evidence to suggest it had been used for anything suspicious.

• There was no blood in the cellar, and the bath blood was said to have been found in had not been used since 1920.

• The "secret underground chambers" were just holes in the floor, "not dungeons or cellars".

• Most of the 170 pieces of bone found in the search came from animals. Three were human and two of these dated from between 1470-1670 and 1650-1950 respectively.

Mr Warcup said: "Our assessment is that the forensic recoveries do not indicate that there have been murders of children or other persons at Haut de la Garenne.

"Nor do we believe that the evidence indicates that bodies have been destroyed, buried or hidden at Haut de la Garenne.

"It's very unfortunate and I very much regret that information was put into the public domain by the States of Jersey police about certain finds at Haut de la Garenne, which was not strictly accurate."

The investigation into the home had cost "just over £4m", Mr Warcup added.

I linked to a piece Richard Webster wrote on this case back in April. The press, as he reminds us today (in an excerpt from a new postscript to his book The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch Hunt) have played a less than glorious role in this whole charade:

On Saturday 23 February 2008, a team of police officers and forensic experts made a discovery which would transform an obscure police inquiry in a picturesque corner of Jersey into a global media frenzy. The discovery took place inside the main building of the former Haut de la Garenne children’s home. It was reportedly made not by the officers themselves but by a trained sniffer dog which had previously taken part in the search for Madeleine McCann after her abduction in Portugal. Almost immediately the police issued a press release saying that they had found ‘what appears to be potential remains of a child’.

A press conference was held and the effect on journalists was electric. News of the discovery rapidly shot to the top of radio and television news bulletins. That evening the BBC website headlined its story ‘Child’s body found at care home’. It went on to say that ‘parts of a child’s body’ had been discovered and that the remains were thought to date ‘from the early 1980s’. Deputy Chief Police Officer Lenny Harper was quoted as saying that detectives ‘think there is the possibility they may find more remains’.

Within 24 hours this gruesome story spread around the globe amidst talk of a possible paedophile ring. The Guardian reported that ‘half a dozen bodies’ might be found and quoted Harper as saying: ‘There could be six or more. It could be higher than that.’ Journalists descended on Jersey from all over the world. Massive resources were poured into what rapidly became a multi-million pound inquiry, and teams of experts were brought in from all over the UK. Meanwhile both broadsheet and tabloid newspapers carried reports of cover-ups, of sinister political machinations, of the involvement of prominent Jersey politicians and of allegations which in the past went unheeded.

Almost every one of the motifs which had emerged in the North Wales story [ie Bryn Estyn] seemed to be present again. The only significant difference was that the publicity in this case focused not so much on sexual abuse as on the idea that former residents of children’s homes had been secretly tortured and murdered after being raped by those en-trusted with their care.

There was only one problem. This was that practically every element of the initial story, as relayed by the media, was untrue.

The chief of police has been suspended. So how much will the press berate themselves for their part in all this, I wonder?

Well OK, no I don't.

http://mickhartley.typepad.com/blog/2008/11/the-haut-de-la-garenne-affair.html

Jersey probe officer faces Secrets Act investigation
By Deborah McAleese
Tuesday, 23 December 2008


Storm on Jersey: Lenny Harper outside the Haut de la Garenne care home which was at the centre of his investigations


Jersey probe cop Lenny Harper: I’m being set up as the fall guy
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The Northern Ireland police officer who headed up a major Jersey child abuse probe is being investigated under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking a memo criticising Jersey’s Attorney General.

Lenny Harper’s successor, Jersey’s Deputy Chief Officer David Warcup, has asked UK police officers to investigate if Mr Harper leaked a private memo to Jersey’s Attorney General detailing his concerns about the collapse of prosecution proceedings against certain suspects.

The memo outlined Mr Harper’s belief that the Attorney General’s office was attempting to obstruct the police inquiry into historical child abuse on the island and was submitted as evidence in a High Court case.

Officers are attempting to establish if the Londonderry man was responsible for the alleged leak and are understood to be pursuing the matter under the Official Secrets Act.

It is believed that a number of journalists have been asked by Sussex police to reveal if the memo had been leaked to them by Mr Harper.

“The document in question was actually lodged with the High Court in London some months back. The document was produced as evidence in the proceedings in the High Court and was subsequently reported in the media. My presumption is that the media obtained it from there,” Mr Harper told the Belfast Telegraph.

A spokeswoman for Jersey States Police confirmed that Mr Warcup ordered an investigation into the alleged leak, but said no further details could be given at present.

Mr Harper is due to give evidence in the High Court in London next month about obstructions he claims he faced while trying to bring cases to court during his time at the helm of the child abuse investigation.

The legal action was launched in August by a campaign group that says it does not have confidence in the island’s authorities.

The island’s attorney general has said criticism of its justice system was “misplaced”.

“The courts of Jersey have been delivering justice week in, week out for centuries. Justice will be done,” he has said.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/jersey-probe-officer-faces-secrets-act-investigation-14118781.html

Timeline: Haut de la Garenne


Haut de la Garenne in the 1940s was called Jersey Home for Boys
Former Jersey children's home Haut de la Garenne is at the centre of a major child abuse investigation. BBC News charts the home's history.
22 June 1867: Jersey Industrial School opens it doors for "young people of the lower classes of society and neglected children".
1900: Name changes to Jersey Home for Boys. The boys faced floggings and a former resident, the late Frank Lewis, remembered a boy's fingers being severed with a sharp cane.
1960: Name changes to Haut de la Garenne. Garenne means rabbit warren.
When it first opened its doors, no child who had appeared before a magistrate was allowed a place at Haut de la Garenne. That changed with the popular belief that prison was the wrong place for troublesome youngsters.
1981: A UK report says the home was "uneconomical" and should either be closed or modified, not because of any criticism of the way the home was run, but because the number of children was declining.

A dormitory at Haut de la Garenne in the 1940s
The building, which housed up to 60 children, only had about 30-40 living there with about 15 residential staff and two part-time workers.
1986: Haut de la Garenne closes. The Education Department said it would find work for staff at a new home or elsewhere in the education system.
2004: A £2.25m refurbishment transforms the two-storey Victorian building into Jersey's first youth hostel, with 100 beds.
2006: Jersey Police begin a covert investigation into abuse of children at Haute de la Garenne following allegations by former residents.
Timeline: Jersey abuse claims


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/jersey/7266643.stm

'I don't have emotions anymore'
By Sanchia Berg
BBC News



Abuse claims at the home over 30 years are being investigated

One victim's story
As police continue to search a former Jersey children's home at the centre of abuse allegations, one former resident describes her experience there.

"I've had the same dream for the last 25-30 years about a man standing by my bed. I always wake up screaming you know, but I can't ever see the man's face.

"But that's a dream that I've had and I wake up screaming all the time."

Brenda - not her real name - spent several years as a child at the Haut de la Garenne children's home in the 1960s and 1970s.

She has "blocked out" much of what happened to her there, but she knows she was sexually abused because at the age of nine she told her mother, who complained to senior staff at the home.

Memories return

According to Brenda, both she and her mother were put under pressure to withdraw the complaint, and the police were never called. The member of staff who'd been abusing her was sacked though, she said.

She didn't know whether other children were being sexually abused at the same time. She recalled that they were often given the cough mixture Benylin at night, which made children drowsy.

In recent months she has been interviewed by police. That, coupled with the continuous news coverage of the home, means some memories have returned, which she finds deeply upsetting.

She said that reading about the cellar which police are currently investigating "brought something back".


I don't think I have any emotions about anything
"I remember we used to go in there but I don't remember what we used to go in there for. As well the shower rooms I remember, and I remember another bedroom in there. Those are the rooms that stand out when I see them."

She believes something must have happened to her there, but can't remember what. She does recall though being put in the "detention room" which was on a higher level.

She said that children used to stay in there for two weeks, sometimes longer.

"It was just a room with a wooden bed in it with a thin mattress and one blanket, no curtains up there or anything so people could look in and see you. It was like being in a zoo."

"I know people burned the detention rooms because they had grids and people used to put matches in through the top of the grids and one of the boys nearly died in there, he got smoked out."

'A lot of anger'

She recalled that one young boy, aged about seven at the time, was beaten very badly: "His backside was full of the marks and his backside was bleeding, and he couldn't sit at all."

She told me that what happened to her in the home has affected the rest of her life. She said that she finds it very hard to love someone. "I find you look after number one. You look after yourself, no one else."

She said that for many years she'd resolved not to have children of her own.

"I thought I'd never ever bring a child into this world because I didn't want them brought up like we were brought up and I felt like that till I was 34. I had a lot of anger."

Now, when she sees small children in the family she can't understand how anyone could hurt them in any way.

But when asked if she would like to see those who hurt her, and others, brought to account she said bleakly: "Can I answer honestly? I don't think I have any emotions about anything."

The interview with the former resident of the Haut de la Garenne children's home, revoiced by an actress, was broadcast on Radio 4's Today programme on Friday 29 Feb 2008.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7271047.stm

Timeline: Jersey 'abuse' claims

About 100 people have made allegations of abuse at a former children's home in Jersey, which they say happened between the early 1960s and 1986.
In 2006 Jersey police began a covert investigation at Haute de la Garenne, and the ongoing inquiry has also discovered the partial remains of young children.
Here are the main developments.

Police started digging at the site in February 2008.
26 September 2008: Jersey's Chief Minister, Frank Walker, tells British and Irish politicians there is no rift with the judiciary, following criticism by Jersey Police's former Deputy Chief Officer Lenny Harper.
16 September 2008: Jersey's Attorney General, William Bailhache, defends the island's legal system, following allegations of a "cover-up".
28 August 2008: A memo from Lenny Harper leaked to the BBC says the investigation team has been "let down" by lawyers assigned to assist them.
26 August 2008: Attorney General William Bailhache decides there is "insufficient evidence" to bring a prosecution in one of six cases related to the inquiry. A man and a woman arrested on 24 June are released without charge.
15 August 2008: A campaign group set up by Lib Dem MP John Hemming and Jersey senator Stuart Syvret launches a High Court bid for a judicial review of what it calls the "failure" of UK ministers to "enforce the rule of law" over the inquiry.
7 August 2008: Lenny Harper, who led the two-year Jersey Police investigation, retires. He is replaced as Deputy Chief Officer by David Warcup.
5 August 2008: Gordon Claude Wateridge, 77, is charged with with 16 counts of indecent assault relating to alleged offences against four girls and one boy in the 1970s at Haut de la Garenne, where he was a former warder.
1 August 2008: Attorney General William Bailhache says he is confident Jersey's judicial system can deliver justice in the alleged cases of historical child abuse.
31 July 2008: Police say remains of at least five children aged between four and 11 have been found, but a murder inquiry is unlikely because they cannot be precisely dated.
Searches of the home have uncovered 65 milk teeth and more than 100 bone fragments.
22 July 2008: Labour MP Austin Mitchell tables a Commons motion calling on the UK government to hold an inquiry into the child abuse allegations. He says he has no confidence in a public inquiry by Jersey's authorities.
14 July 2008: Police say material found in the search of the WWII bunker corroborates claims made by witnesses.
8 July 2008: Police are to start searching a World War II bunker as part of their inquiry. Six people claim they were abused at the site, which is 500 metres away from the home.

The excavations uncovered thousands of exhibits
19 June 2008: The number of milk teeth unearthed at the home rises to 48.
4 June 2008: Attorney General William Bailhache says a judge from outside the island could be brought in for trials resulting from claims of historic child abuse. He told the Times this could happen if several people pleaded not guilty and long trials were likely.
31 May 2008: Michael Aubin, 45, is charged with sexually abusing three boys at Haut de la Garenne between 1977 and 1980.
29 May 2008: Police say tests on five teeth found in a cellar revealed most probably came out after death and were from at least two children.
21 May 2008: Jersey police say bone fragments found in the cellar "do indicate a homicide or an unexplained death". There is also evidence fragments had been burnt in a fireplace. The list of suspects grows from 40 to 70.
18 May 2008: Jersey police confirm that what they originally thought were bone fragments discovered on 23 February are more likely wood or even coconut shell. Police say they had already discounted the discovery since it likely dates from before the 1940s. Their investigation continues.
30 April 2008: Claude Donnelly, 68, appears in court charged with sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. The offence is not related to the Haute de la Garenne investigation, but is part of a wider inquiry into child abuse.
9 March 2008: A rally takes place in St Helier highlighting public concerns about the way claims of abuse at Haut de la Garenne have been handled by the Jersey authorities.
7 March 2008: A sniffer dog is reported to have detected traces of blood in a concrete bath inside one of the bricked-up cellars.

Police teams excavated four cellar rooms in Haut de la Garenne
28 February 2008: Police say they have made "significant" finds in the cellar - understood to be a set of shackles and a shallow concrete bath.
25 February 2008: Police focus their attentions on a bricked-up cellar after a sniffer dog helped them identify six "sites of interest" for investigation at the former home.
23 February 2008: Police say they believe they have found "what appears to be potential remains of a child" under several inches of concrete in a stairwell in the north-west corner at the back of the building.
19 February 2008: Jersey police, acting on information from their investigation, begin an exploratory search of the former care home at Haut de la Garenne.
30 January 2008: Gordon Claude Wateridge is charged with three offences of indecent assault on girls under 16 between 1969 and 1979 at Haut de la Garenne.
11 September 2007: Stuart Syvret is removed from his post after losing a vote of no confidence.
22 August 2007: The States agree to an independent review of child protection arrangements in Jersey.
July 2007: Health Minister Stuart Syvret accuses the States of failing to protect children in another island home.
2006: Jersey Police begin a covert investigation into abuse of children at Haute de la Garenne following allegations by former residents.
Timeline: Haut de la Garenne

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/jersey/7534474.stm

Page last updated at 19:34 GMT, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 20:34 UK
Q&A: Jersey abuse inquiry

Police in Jersey investigating allegations of abuse at former children's home Haut de la Garenne say bone fragments found in the cellar could suggest homicide.
The BBC's Alex Bushill, in Jersey, explains the significance of the new information.
How important are today's revelations?
On the face of it, this could be a major development - with confirmation by Jersey police that they have found the remains of at least one child, possibly more, in the cellar of Haut de la Garenne.

Alex Bushill reports from Jersey on the latest findings

Archaeologist and specialist police teams have been excavating four rooms under the former children's home for the past four months.
To date, they have unearthed 30 fragments of bone and seven milk or baby teeth.
Because these fragments were found by a fireplace in the cellar and appear to have been both burnt and cut, the police officer in charge, Lenny Harper, has said this evidence shows "signs of homicide".
Added to this is the fact that many of the milk teeth that have been uncovered are still attached to their root.
For the police and forensic experts, this is a clear sign that these teeth could not have been extracted naturally or indeed accidentally. As a result, the police are now treating this as a suspicious death.
Is this the first time the police have said they have found human remains?
No. But it is the first time they have said on the record that they have found the remains of one child, possibly more.
The process of excavating the complex of cellars is painstaking. Teams of specialists are still sifting through tonnes of rubble in the third and fourth cellar.
It is a challenging task: most of the bone fragments are no bigger than a 50 pence piece and soon adopt the colour of the rubble they are buried in.
The first time the police did announce human remains had been found at the site was when they thought they had discovered fragments of a child's skull under a staircase in Haut de la Garenne itself back in February of this year.
Why isn't this being treated as murder?

Forensic experts excavated cellar rooms in Haut de la Garenne
Simply because although all the evidence shows signs of homicide, as the police put it, they cannot pinpoint how old these human remains are.
DNA testing and carbon dating at two laboratories on the UK mainland have so far only revealed that these bone fragments could have been placed at the former children's home as early as the 18th Century or as late as the 1980s.
Establishing exactly when these fragments were buried and whether they were buried no later than the 1960s, when the alleged abuse is thought to have begun, will decide whether this investigation becomes a murder inquiry.
Why has the police inquiry been criticised?
This police inquiry has been criticised for not admitting sooner doubts over the first piece of skull fragments found at Haut de la Garenne.

Specialist teams have found seven milk or baby teeth
It may be that the fragments of skull that sparked the excavation could be nothing more than a piece of wood.
Defending himself at a media conference on Wednesday, the officer in charge, Lenny Harper, dismissed that criticism as "codswallop".
He argued that it was an irrelevance as that fragment had been ruled out of this inquiry for being too old, as it dated back to the 1920s.
He insisted the focus of the investigation now had to be the human remains that have been discovered.
Overall, how is the inquiry going?
For the island of Jersey, this inquiry is unprecedented in scale and scope.
A fifth of the island's police force is working on the case with officers from the mainland having been drafted in.
Above and beyond today's revelations, this criminal investigation continues to examine allegations of abuse at Haut de la Garenne dating back from the 1960s until 1986, when the home was closed.
In all, 160 people have come forward alleging sexual and physical abuse at Haut de la Garenne.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/jersey/7413589.stm

Page last updated at 16:14 GMT, Thursday, 31 July 2008 17:14 UK
Carbon dating and the Jersey case

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News


Jersey murder inquiry 'unlikely'
The police chief leading the Jersey abuse inquiry says attempts to carbon date remains from at least five children are unlikely to yield results.
So far, police have found 65 milk teeth and more than 100 bone fragments during their search of the former Haut de la Garenne children's home.
Radiocarbon dating can be a useful tool in police investigations when combined with other forensic information.

It's unlikely that carbon dating will be able to shed much light on the dates of these individuals
Prof Gerry McCormac, Queen's University Belfast
The technique relies on a simple natural phenomenon: living organisms contain both stable forms of the element carbon and a radioactive form, called carbon-14 (C14).
Humans take this radioactive carbon into their bodies by eating plants and animals. But when an organism dies, the C14 inside it begins to disappear.
Scientists can use this fact to measure how much radioactive carbon is left and how much has disappeared.
By comparing this against modern levels, they can calculate a date for the death of the organism. This is done by testing C14 in organic matter such as bone, teeth or seeds.
Nuclear contamination
However, attempts to date organic remains from after the late 1950s are affected by one of the consequences of 20th Century politics.
"Nuclear bomb testing that started in the late 1950s significantly contaminated the whole of the atmosphere. So you have very high levels of carbon-14 through that period that didn't exist prior to that," said Professor Gerry McCormac, an expert on radiocarbon dating from Queen's University Belfast.
"When we're going back in time, you don't have that effect, it's really the natural radiocarbon you're using to get the measurements from."
This nuclear "enrichment" can be very useful in forensic cases dealing with remains from after the 1950s. If the remains from Jersey were from after this time, the signal of nuclear tests would be obvious.
But even before the "bomb carbon" period, humans were already disrupting the natural radiocarbon signal by burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas.
Fossil fuels contain no carbon-14; the organic matter is so old - millions of years old - that all the radioactive C14 has decayed away.
Misleading signal
Fossil fuel burning releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. This CO2 is composed only of the stable forms of carbon, but no radioactive C14.
This then mixes with existing atmospheric CO2, diluting the overall concentration of radioactive carbon.

Radiocarbon dating is used in a variety of scientific fields
Dr Gordon Cook, from the radiocarbon lab at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) in Glasgow, explained: "A plant takes up the C14, an animal eats the plant, the animal looks as though it has a lower C14 activity for a living organism than it should do.
"It dies, you measure it, it looks as though it died some time ago when, in fact, it only just died."
Deputy police chief Lenny Harper, who is leading the Jersey abuse investigation, told the BBC that one bone from the Haut de la Garenne site, which had been radiocarbon dated yielded "a probability the person had died in 1650, but also a smaller probability they had died in 1960".
In addition, the natural production of C14 fluctuated between 1670 and 1950, making it very difficult to date material from this period anyway.
All of this means that if the Haut de la Garenne remains are pre-1950s, or just on the cusp of the nuclear era, it might be difficult to distinguish them from much older remains - those, say, from the 19th or 18th Centuries.
Burial context
"It's unlikely that carbon dating will be able to shed much light on the dates of these individuals," said Professor McCormac.
"What it could do is rule out a prehistoric origin - for example, if this was an old burial site of 200 years ago or beyond that, carbon dating could tell you that. What it couldn't tell you, to within a few years, is when that individual died."
Radiocarbon dating can also be difficult if the bones are very small or fragmentary. This is because scientists rely on the bone retaining significant amounts of the protein collagen to test. Extensively burned remains are also unsuitable for dating.
Professor McCormac explained: "The context of where they found [the human material] and the buildings around them and the strata in which they were found will typically give them more information than a carbon date would."
Deputy chief officer Harper explained: "We have the evidence that the bones were placed where we found them no earlier than the late 60s/early 70s. We have the evidence that they were burned.
"We have the evidence they were deliberately concealed. And we seem to have evidence - we think - that they were moved from one part of the building to another."
He told the BBC's Today programme that it was always possible the human remains were much older.
"Then you have to ask, why would people go to all the trouble of moving the bones, of burning them at some stage, of hiding them in a different place and then of covering them up."
Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7535083.stm

Jersey probe: Lenny Harper hits back
By Deborah McAleese
Thursday, 13 November 2008


Storm on Jersey: Lenny Harper outside the Haut de la Garenne care home which was at the centre of his investigations


The Northern Ireland police officer who headed up the Jersey child abuse probe last night furiously defended his investigation after his successor attacked several key pieces of evidence.

In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, Londonderry man Lenny Harper hit back at claims from senior officers that he had previously released “misleading” and “inaccurate” information, stating that he and his team had always acted with integrity.

The credibility of the £4m investigation was last night in tatters as the Jersey government and Mr Harper’s successor, Deputy Chief Officer David Warcup, claimed that some aspects of the probe “had not been conducted properly”.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Mr Harper, who retired in August, said he was “disappointed” and “mystified” at the comments, which he claimed misrepresented what he had said during his time at the fore of the investigation.

Earlier Mr Warcup said there was no evidence that any children had been murdered or bodies destroyed at the former care home Haut de la Garenne. He expressed “much regret” at “misleading” information released by Mr Harper. He also said bones found at the home were probably hundreds of years old and so-called torture chambers were merely cellars.

“What I have said has been deliberately, or otherwise, totally misrepresented,” Mr Harper told this paper.

“I am bemused as to why this press conference was held to say nothing substantially new. I never said we had credible evidence of murder or murder suspects. I have always said we did not have a homicide enquiry but were treating the scene as one of a potential homicide. I would have thought they would have understood the difference.

“As for the bones, they said they could be hundreds of years old — we said that months ago. And the fragment thought to have been from a skull — we ruled that out of the investigation months ago. They are not saying anything I have not said previously,” said Mr Harper.

He added that officers had never labelled the cellars at Haut de la Garenne as torture chambers and had been acting on evidence from victims.

“We never called them dungeons. The victims were telling us that they were lowered down into these rooms, which we always made clear, used to be the ground floor of that building,” he said.

Mr Harper added that Mr Warcup's comments came at “an opportune time” for the Jersey government, as a report into the island's care system by the Howard League for Penal Reform was due to be released on Friday.

“I’m totally mystified as to why he should issue this non-event. I’m sure it is a coincidence that the Howard League for Penal Reform is publishing its report on allegations of abuse within the Jersey care system. That will be interesting,” said Mr Harper.

He added: “I am not going to let this get to me. I have no regrets about the way this investigation was handled by myself and my team. Some of the criticisms made (yesterday) were made by Andrew Lewis the new Home Affairs Minister who said they had not been told all details.

“I briefed Andrew regularly when he took over the role. Indeed, the night before I left the island he told my wife and myself that my team and myself had done a fantastic job, despite all the political nonsense and backbiting we had to endure.”

A former minister for health and social services in Jersey, Senator Stuart Syvret, has rushed to defend Mr Harper.

Senator Syvret said yesterday’s press conference by the new investigations team was a bid “to justify the dismissal and abandoning of certain aspects of the Haut de la Garenne investigation, including the possibility of child deaths having occurred there, and certain of the more serious abuse claims”.

The suggestion that children could have been murdered at Haut de la Garenne, which closed in 1986, was first made by Mr Harper in February when he announced that what appeared to be part of a child’s skull had been found underneath a floor at the home.

Forensic tests later established that the “skull” was more likely to be a piece of wood or coconut shell.

Warcup and Harper's war of words: The accusations and the rebuttals

Deputy chief officer David |Warcup’s claims at press conference... and Lenny Harper’s |response to the Belfast Telegraph in his own words.

? Warcup: There is no evidence that any children had been murdered or bodies destroyed at the former home.

? Harper: They said they have “no credible evidence of murder” and “no suspects for murder.” They announced this as if it was a contradiction to what I had said. Not true. I have always said we did not have a homicide enquiry but were treating the scene as one of a potential homicide. Surprisingly they seem to miss the distinction. Furthermore I told the Chief Minister Frank Walker, on the day that he brought his wife for a tour of Haut de le Garenne, in her presence and that of my team, that he should prepare himself for the fact that we might not be able to launch a homicide enquiry because of a lack of evidence. He said this would not be a bad outcome and he was confident that we would do what we could.

? Warcup: After being examined by experts from the British Museum, a fragment thought to have been from a skull turned out to be a piece of Victorian coconut shell.

? Harper: They spoke about the original find “probably being a piece of coconut or wood.” The truth is that the item has never been positively identified and the source they quoted was only one of a number of varying opinions. Furthermore, it has never been explained just how collagen, which is only found in mammals, was found in it. Additionally, we had, of course, ruled out the item anyway because our experts were telling us it was too old.

? Warcup: “Shackles” found in rubble turned out to be “a rusty piece of metal”, and there was no evidence to suggest it had been used for anything suspicious.

? Harper: They described the shackles as “just rusty pieces of metal.” Of course they are rusty pieces of metal — they have been in the ground for over 30 years. Furthermore, they ignore the fact that it was not only us who described them as shackles, which one pair obviously are. Builders who found them in 2003 and left them where they were, tipped off the media that we would find shackles.

? Warcup: The “secret underground chambers” were just holes in the floor, “not dungeons or cellars”.

? Harper: They said that the cellars are “not cellars or dungeons, but are merely floor voids.” Surprisingly, I never used the word dungeons. They are not floor voids. What we call the cellars (and what the victims call the cellars) are in fact what used to be the ground floor. What is certain is that victims described them accurately and the abuse that went on in there.

? Warcup: Most of the 170 pieces of bone found in the search came from animals. Three were human and two of these dated from between 1470-1670 and 1650-1950 respectively.

? Harper: “The bones could be hundreds of years old.” Well this is certainly not new. When detailing the results of carbon dating, I made it clear that the dates ranged from 1650 to 1950. The expert in the UK who had examined the first bones we sent (which included a piece of child's tibia) said that they were very likely the bones of a juvenile human, they had been burnt shortly after death and buried shortly after burning. In his view they were no more than a few decades old. I made it clear that in the light of the conflicting information which, if it remained the same, it was “obvious that there would not be a murder enquiry.” This is clearly confirmed by, among others, the BBC News website which carries a link from yesterday’s story to one called “Jersey Murder Enquiry Unlikely” which was posted at 5.46pm UK time on July 31, 2008.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/jersey-probe-lenny-harper-hits-back-14059307.html

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Murder, they wrote
Comments (2)

Peter Wilby
The Guardian, Monday 1 December 2008
Article history
Last month, Jersey police announced that, so far as they could establish, there was no torture and no murder at the Haut de la Garenne children's care home in Jersey. The widely reported "human remains" (actually tiny bone fragments) were mostly animals, though three were possibly humans who died at least 58 years ago, and maybe more than 500 years ago. A "skull fragment" was a coconut shell. Underground "torture chambers" were floor voids where a grown person could not stand straight. "Shackles" were bits of old metal guttering. And so on and so on.

You probably saw the story, though you could be forgiven if you missed it. The Sun, Mail and Mirror had it on pages 19, 29 and 35 respectively. Back in February, when the abuse allegations first surfaced, Jersey was front-page news. Every paper gave it dramatic elaboration in the following months. Children had been "dismembered" and "incinerated". This was "a house of horrors", a "fortress of fear", a "kiddies' Colditz" where children were flung into "punishment pits". Detectives had discovered "sex abuse bunkers" and "mass graves". Terrible crimes, perpetrated by "a ring of evil men", had been "covered up" by the "close-knit Jersey establishment" on "the isle of secrets and whispers".

A Daily Mail reporter visited a nearby church where "faceless perverts" were damned by the Dean of Jersey. "From their muffled sobs, the victims, mainly middle-aged and careworn now, were all-too-easily identifiable ... others ... appeared to shift a little uneasily in their pews as the dean demanded that the culprits be called to account."

If all this colourful reporting was based on false premises, last month's reports implied, that was the fault of the police. "Shambles" was the Mirror's headline. "£1.5m, 100 police, 7 mths to discover no one killed". The only thing missing was a call for heads to roll. Jersey's police chief, Graham Power, had already been suspended and Lenny Harper, the chief investigating officer, had recently retired.

Perhaps the press was also inhibited by its own failures. Its reports cast suspicion on anybody who ever worked at Haut de la Garenne and implied that just about every resident of "the isle of secrets and whispers" was guilty at least of complicity. Journalists had, for the most part, reported accurately (albeit with embellishment) what Harper told them. But when I spoke last week to Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell, seconded from Lancashire CID to take over the investigation this autumn, he expressed surprise that Harper's statements hadn't been more strongly challenged. Why didn't journalists contact the "forensic experts" who examined the "human remains" (and eventually reported they were no such thing)? Why didn't they ask more questions about "evidence" they were shown? Why didn't they ask Harper (described in one paper as "a no-nonsense, old-school policeman from Londonderry") about his experience and qualifications for leading complex investigations?

Occasionally, doubts about the evidence did surface - some as long ago as the spring - but journalists generally added that, as the police had received 160 or more complaints from individual abuse victims, awful things must have happened. But these, too, needed challenging. Some were trivial, some simply false, some concerned other children's homes, some concerned domestic abuse. Though nobody has yet been convicted, there probably was abuse at Haut de la Garenne. But it was not systematic, organised or endemic. Nor, it seems, was anybody killed.

This isn't the first time the press has rushed to print allegations of organised abuse in children's homes. Most journalists want to be crusaders, exposing evil conspiracies and cover-ups. Many police officers have similar ambitions. For them, it's more interesting and exciting than dealing with routine burglaries; for hacks, it's better than taking down names of funeral mourners or writing up thinktank reports. The two combine in a kind of group-think, laying aside normal occupational scepticism. They listen to former residents who talk of violence and sexual molestation, ignoring any who insist they were treated kindly, even lovingly.

The failing is not confined to downmarket papers. For example, in the early 1990s, allegations of systematic abuse at the Bryn Estyn home in Wrexham and others in north Wales first came from the Independent and its Sunday sister. As many as 365 people were accused and questioned. Just a handful of prosecutions followed from the main investigation, leading to only two new convictions for sexual abuse, one of them probably unsound. These were followed by further allegations that local police officers who conducted the inquiry were part of an abusive ring, based on Masonic links. One of them successfully sued for libel. Only thanks to an exhaustively researched, 700-page book, The Secret of Bryn Estyn, by Richard Webster, a freelance writer, do we have an inkling of the true story. The book, however, although shortlisted for the Orwell prize, went almost completely unnoticed in the national press.

In such cases, even the usual watchdogs relax their vigilance. Private Eye made much of the running both on Bryn Estyn and on an earlier story about Kincora boys' home in Belfast, where cases of real abuse became allegations that young boys were provided for the pleasure of leading Northern Irish politicians. Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News, wrote eloquently about north Wales in the Guardian in 1997. I was deputy editor and then editor of the IoS when it "exposed" Bryn Estyn. Since then, we have all edited and written more sceptically - Davies wrote twice in the Guardian about Jersey, the first time in April - but the question remains: why did our usual instincts not kick in years earlier?

The answer is simple. Presented with what the trade calls "a cracking good story", reporters and editors do not waste time asking if it's true. They try to unearth more details and "take it further". From hundreds of people who formerly attended children's homes, many of them vulnerable and suggestible, it is not hard to find at least a few who will assist. The press is interested above all in narrative, not, as it likes to think, in that elusive and untidy entity, "the truth". Jersey and similar cases offer ideal ingredients, recalling such films as The Wicker Man (a comparison actually used by the Sun in its coverage of Haut de la Garenne): unspeakable acts perpetrated against children; powerful men who take advantage of sexual opportunities and then help "cover up" the truth; demonic conspiracies, probably based on Masonry; isolated, closed institutions where nobody can hear you scream. Note how often these stories emerge at locations remote from the metropolitan centre: Jersey, north Wales, Belfast or, to take one of many instances from abroad, Nova Scotia. As the old maps said, there be dragons.

Webster argues that modern "scandals" of mass abuse - which, he emphasises, "inevitably undermine the credibility of those who make genuine allegations" - echo the witch-hunts of the middle ages. It is not surprising that the media, a sort of modern priesthood, play such a central and willing role.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/01/jersey-children-home-haut-garenne

News of the World
13 juillet (plus en ligne)
HELLFIRE
Jersey home dossier to reveal children were murdered...then burnt
Exclusive by Lucy Panton
A SHOCK secret police report into the Jersey House of Hell children's home reveals
youngsters there WERE murdered then BURNED in a furnace to COVER UP the
atrocities.
It's feared island authorities may try to hush up the dossier on Haut de la Garenne orphanage but a
source told us: "Officers on this case are in NO DOUBT what went on."
Innocent children WERE raped, murdered and their bodies then BURNT in a FURNACE at the Jersey
House of Horrors, says a top-secret police report into the scandal.
A News of the World investigation reveals cops have shocking
new evidence of how the killings were COVERED UP at the
Haut de la Garenne care home.
Our chilling revelations come as officers prepare to hand over
their damning dossier from Britain's biggest ever child abuse
probe to the island's States of Jersey authorities.
A total of 65 teeth and around 100 charred fragments of bones
are all that remain of victims detectives believe were abused
and killed before their tortured corpses were thrown into a fiery
grave inside the house of hell.
But records of children who stayed at the home over past
decades have been destroyed so police have an impossible
task of putting names to their grim finds.
A source close to the four-month investigation told us: "There's
NO doubt in the minds of the detectives on this case that
children WERE murdered in the home.
"Officers believe they have compelling evidence that
youngsters' bodies were burnt in the home's furnace then the
remains swept into the soil floor in the cellars—the area that
became dubbed ‘the torture rooms'.
Ripped
"The problem has been identifying the children that went missing over the years. No records were kept
of who came and left that place.
"Kids were shipped to the home from all over the UK and were never heard of again.
"All the inquiry team have to go on is this grim collection of teeth and bone fragments and no names to
match up to the remains.
"Because this investigation has seen so many twists and turns people seem to find it hard to accept
that children WERE slaughtered and their deaths WERE covered up."

Most of the dental remains discovered have been identified as children's milk teeth. And we can reveal
that among more than 100 bone fragments is a TIBIA from a child's leg and what police believe is an
"intact" ADENOID bone from the ear of an infant.
These were all retrieved from a fingertip search of the four cellars in the Home's EAST WING.
Forensic teams also found STRANDS OF NYLON which they have concluded came from the head of
a broom.
And, because those type of nylon brooms were only used in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the
discovery helped officers to put a date on when the bones were swept into the soil floor.
Cops are now convinced that those charred bones and teeth were emptied from the bottom of the
home's industrial furnace—located away in the West Wing—when it was ripped out around that time to
insall oil-fired central heating.
Officers have spoken to builders who worked on renovations at the home but have been unable to
discover what happened to the furnace after that. But they have taken samples from the chimney
breast which was left behind.
Around that same time wooden floorboards were laid OVER the old soil floor in the east wing.
And it is there, within the hidden torture chambers just inches below, that the bones, a pair of shackles
and children's clothing were found.
Also in the underground rooms police discovered a large concrete bath with traces of blood. A builder
has also given evidence that he was asked to dig two lime pits in the ground nearby around that
period. Lime pits have often been used to destroy corpses.
So far 97 people have come forward to complain they were abused as children at Haut de la Garenne.
Many have described being drugged, shackled, raped, flogged and held in a dark cellar for long
periods.
Much of the clothing found at the scene is thought to date back to the 1960s and 1970s when
youngsters had to make their own clothes and shoes in the care home work shop.
Cops now believe that whoever was responsible for removing the furnace KNEW that there were
children's remains inside. And they think it was moved while disgraced headmaster Colin Tilbrook was
in charge of the place.
Tilbrook, now dead, has been described by former charges as being behind "some of the most horrific
abuse" at the home.
We can reveal that cops now plan to quiz one of his closest aides who is still alive and living in the UK.
Tilbrook, who ran the home in the 1960s, died aged 62 in 1988 after suffering a heart attack in a public
swimming pool. His foster daughter Tina Blee, 38, recently made an emotional visit to Haut de la
Garenne to meet abuse victims and bravely told how SHE was raped by the monster every week as a
child, after he took her in following his departure from Jersey.
She said: "I needed to come here to say sorry for what he's done. If children were killed here I'm
convinced he played a big part in it.
"He was more than capable of murder."
This week police began a forensic examination inside a nearby World War II German bunker which
victims say was used as a base for abusing children.
Six witnesses say they were sexually assaulted by staff at the squat brick building which houses a
network of underground rooms and passages.
As that work starts, police have closed the doors on their detailed forensic hunt inside the hell home.
Lack of records still hampers police. But we can reveal that one mainland authority, Birmingham City
Council, has presented the Jersey force with a list of children who were sent to the home but went
missing.
Although four have now been tracked down, after a mammoth search one still remains unaccounted
for.
Earlier this year we also uncovered allegations that pictures of BABIES being raped were taken in the
care home and circulated by an international child porn ring.
Stash
Experts suspect the home was responsible for many of the
seedy network's 9,000 sick pictures, discovered in an infamous
haul in Holland in the Nineties.
It was dubbed the Zandvoort stash, after the town where it was
found—but the source studio was never uncovered.
Police said their latest intensive probe at Haut de la Garenne
has produced more than 40 suspects.
Three men have already been charged with sex abuse offences
as part of the inquiry. But now, despite the wealth of shocking detail uncovered by officers, there are fears the full truth about
the House of Hell could be covered up yet again after the
investigation boss, Jersey's tough No2 top cop Lenny Harper,
retires next month.
Haut de la Garenne's abused former residents have repeatedly
claimed that what happened was deliberately hushed up to
avoid tarnishing Jersey's reputation as a family-friendly tourist
haven and to give politicians in London no excuse to try to
exercise more control over the island.
Although Jersey is part of the British Isles and under the Queen's rule, it has a separate government
system and makes its own laws.
Jersey's 53-member parliament has no political parties and its politicians, judges, policemen and
business leaders come from a small elite—often linked by friendship or family.
In a separate case recently investigators were frustrated by the island's legal authorities who refused
to charge a couple accused of beating their foster children with cricket bats. Despite being told by
lawyers and an honorary police officer who reviewed the case that there was sufficient evidence to go
ahead, the charges were blocked at the 11th hour.
A police source said: "The argument for not charging this couple was that their natural children have
said they're of good character.
"The detailed statements of all the people who claim they were physically assaulted seem to count for
nothing."
The Haut de la Garenne file, along with several others, is now complete but is "being held up" by
lawyers.
Our inside source added: "There's a strong suspicion that the files are being held on to until Lenny Harper goes and a new team is in place.
"No one will be surprised if the truth about what happened in the care home never surfaces and once
more the evidence gets swept under the carpet."

http://www.critest.com/documents/NOTWjuly08.pdf

http://www.richardwebster.net/jersey-skull.htm

Un blog de Jersey.
Le fait qu' à ce jour il n'y a pas de preuves de meurtres semble avoir discrédité l'enquête (et l'ex-enquêteur en chef). Le résultat est encore plus de détresse pour ceux qui ont subi des abus.

http://stuartsyvret.blogspot.com/2009/01/anatomy-of-spin-7.html

http://justice4survivors.org/sharp/The_Sharp_Report.htm

Entrevue avec Lenny Harper (audio).
http://justice4survivors.org/sharp/Lenny%20.htm

Rapport des alertes d'Eddie/Keela.

http://www.jersey.police.uk/pdf-files/HDLGSummaryforMedia280508.pdf