From The Times
May 13, 2009
Jersey children’s home resident Michael Aubin guilty of abuse
Simon de Bruxelles
Prosecutors secured their first conviction yesterday after a controversial police investigation into abuse in children’s homes on Jersey.
Michael Aubin, 46, admitted abusing children while he was a resident of Haut de la Garenne, the home at the centre of the inquiry, during the 1970s while he was in his mid-teens.
Aubin admitted two counts of gross indecency and two of indecent assault on two children aged under 10. He was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on June 22.
During the investigation — the largest and costliest in Jersey’s history — police amassed a list of 40 suspects after scores of people came forward to claim that they had been sexually and physically abused.
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Although six files were sent to the office of the island’s Attorney-General for a decision on whether to prosecute, only one other person has been charged. Gordon Wateridge, a former house parent in charge of a section within the home, who is now 78, is due to stand trial in August. He will face 27 charges of indecency.
Last July Lenny Harper, then the deputy Chief Officer of States of Jersey Police, announced that it was investigating the possible murders of five children.
The bodies were said to have been dismembered and incinerated in dungeons beneath the home. Although bones were found, they were later discounted as irrelevant.
Mr Harper retired last August, seemingly frustrated with Jersey’s judicial authorities. His successor, Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell, made clear, within weeks of taking over, his anger at the investigation, Operation Rectangle, which had cost £20 million.
In November he announced that there had been no murders. Although there was evidence of sexual abuse, much of it was of an anecdotal nature or the abuse had allegedly been committed by people who were now dead.
The island’s police chief Graham Power was suspended pending an investigation into the way the inquiry had been conducted.
Yesterday, in the Royal Court in St Helier, Aubin, a cleaner who had a second job as a shelf-stacker in Southampton, appeared wearing a white T-shirt and black bomber jacket.
He was arrested at his home in Southampton last year after witnesses came forward to say that he had abused them. He denied the charges but then allegedly confessed, although he still denied having coerced his victims. Doubts were cast on his confession by a psychologist, who told the court that Aubin had a suggestible personality that made it likely that he would agree with anything that was put to him by a person who was in authority.
As a result, three charges of indecent assault against a third boy, who claimed his abuser was a member of staff in his 30s with a moustache, were dropped.
Stephen Baker, for the prosecution, said: “Mr Aubin has said he was sexually abused himself and that was a brutalising process which led to him beginning to enjoy being sexually abused. However, he has provided no detail to enable the police to investigate.
“He says he did not force himself on anyone who resisted or objected but he accepts that as the older, sexually aroused party he would have have dominated the encounters. It seems probable, like most victims, that the boys did not resist or object.
“It may be that in Aubin’s disturbed mind he mistook the lack of resistance for compliance. It seems plain that this was a very disturbed young man in his mid-teens and quite what was going through his mind is impossible to tell.”
Mr Baker added: “Largely what he did was dominate very young children in a criminal fashion.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6276300.ece
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