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Bricked-up cellar may yield truth of child abuse scandal By Jerome Taylor in Jersey and James Macintyre, Tuesday, 26 February 2008 A bricked-up cellar at a former care home in Jersey is being examined by forensic experts after a child's remains were found at the weekend, following claims of abuse at the premises stretching back five decades. Detectives say the search could last up to two weeks after sniffer dogs gave positive "indications" at six other locations within the building. Amid speculation that more bodies may be found at the property, the island's deputy chief of police, Lenny Harper, told the Jersey Evening Post: "We always hoped it would not end like this but, from the information we were getting, it was always a possibility. We are very interested in the cellar because we do have allegations that offences were committed in a cellar and we think we know where that cellar is." There were accusations of a cover-up yesterday after it emerged that several bones were found in 2003 by builders renovating the former children's home, but the remains were written off as being animal bones and the case was closed. Haut de la Garenne, built in 1867, is known as the setting for the BBC detective series Bergerac. In the 19th century, it originally served as an industrial school for "young people of the lower classes of society and neglected children", before becoming a care home by 1900. It was an orphanage and correctional facility until its closure in 1986. In 2004, the house was turned into a 100-room youth hostel after a £2.25m refurbishment. The majority of the alleged assaults are believed to have taken place between the 1960s and 1980s. Police say they have been contacted by 150 people claiming to be victims of abuse or witnesses to it at the centre. The NSPCC said it had received 63 calls from people claiming they were abused in Jersey care homes, 27 of whom have been referred to detectives. Detectives made their first gruesome discovery on Saturday afternoon, when a child's remains, believed to be a skull, were found at the youth hostel in St Martin on the north-western tip of the Channel island. Mr Harper said the inquiry would look into why reported cases went unanswered. "Part of the inquiry will be the fact that a lot of victims tried to report their assaults but ... they were not dealt with as they should be," he said. "We are looking at allegations that a number of agencies didn't deal with things as perhaps they should." As a result of the recent publicity, he added, several people had reported being abused in care on Jersey between the ages of eight and 10, adding to the police tally of 140 possible victims. Stuart Syvret, Jersey's former Health minister, who claims he was sacked for revealing the extent of child abuse on the island, has accused Jersey's government of a cover-up, although Mr Harper said he had seen no evidence of that. Speaking on yesterday's Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Syvret alleged that a "culture" of cover-ups went "as far as the very top of Jersey's society". Comments picked up after a radio interview between the island's chief minister, Frank Walker, and Mr Syvret highlighted the growing tension on the island. After the end of the interview in their Jersey studios Mr Syvret turned on his former political colleague and exclaimed: "We're talking about children here." Mr Walker responded: "You're trying to shaft Jersey internationally." A free helpline set up by the NSPCC at the request of police has received 63 calls from adults reporting allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. Police said that records of children at Haut de la Garenne were "patchy". It is understood that those who died in care may have been reported as runaways. Although officers have not confirmed where in the hostel they are digging, the cellar at the back of the building – which was covered with a white tarpaulin tent yesterday – is believed to be the main focus of the investigation. Three witnesses have told police that child abuse took place in the cellar many times during the 1960s and 1970s. The investigation began in November 2006 but detectives kept their inquiries secret for more than a year in order not to alert those suspected of carrying out the attacks. One Scottish resident, who has lived on the island for eight years, said: "There have been rumours of child abuse for years ... But you don't expect it to happen on a wee little picturesque island like here." History of Haut de la Garenne
Source: website of the Independent (UK) 25/02/08 - News section Haut de la Garenne: Why abuse on this level could happen again By DEMETRIOUS PANTON My mouth went dry and my fists clenched when I heard about the remains found in Jersey. I felt sorrow and rage that police are once again belatedly investigating a huge paedophile ring based on care home kids, and expect to dig up more bodies. A ring of evil men exploited the most vulnerable children imaginable for up to 40 years, and no one stopped them.
It is emerging now that the victims repeatedly begged for help. Why did no one listen? I have a pretty good idea why not, given how viciously the politically-correct establishment silenced me about the similar paedophile ring which raped me. I was sexually abused by two male workers in children's homes in Islington, North London, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I was unusual, a kid who did not seek escape through drugs or suicide. But I did run away and never again attended school. I spent my days at my local library, educated myself and went on to university, desperately hoping I could make someone listen. No-one did. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, I wrote reports on my abusers, demanding an inquiry. In 1992, I even lobbied Margaret Hodge's office - she was then council leader - and met her stand-in, Stephen Twigg, now also a Labour MP. He did nothing. The truth only emerged thanks to a three-year newspaper campaign which revealed that all of Islington's 12 children's homes were run by, or included, staff who were paedophiles, child pornographers or pimps. How did this come about? Child care was - and remains - underpaid and undervalued. Sadists easily acquire jobs when no one else wants them. But there was another insidious factor in Islington - one which I fear leaves other children at equal risk today.
The far-Left council had actively recruited men who claimed to be gay to run its homes, and declared that "gays" did not even need references or professional training or experience. But the men who flocked forward were not gay - they were paedophiles. A 1995 Government-ordered inquiry confirmed that no action was taken against these evil men because "the equal opportunities environment, driven from the personnel perspective, became a positive disincentive for bad practice". In plain English, anyone who raised abuse concerns about the men running its children's homes was "anti gay". And I was written off as "insane". In 2003, when Tony Blair shocked many by appointing Margaret Hodge as Children's Minister, she tried to halt a media investigation into her Islington history by claiming I was "extremely disturbed". She eventually had to apologise to me in the High Court. I was by then a Government adviser, producing reports for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. In Jersey, the victims now coming forward are said to be furious that their earlier pleas for help were ignored. Murder was committed, but no one lifted a finger. I have always believed only the surface of the corruption in Islington was scraped. An immensely brave social worker who blew the whistle on the scandal told me early on that other victims talked of children being killed. But they were too afraid to give details. None of those allegations was ever investigated. Let us not kid ourselves that such horrors could never happen again. People may be more vigorously vetted, and complaints taken more seriously, but paedophiles can offend against hundreds before they acquire a criminal record because children are easy to intimidate and ensnare. The Islington scandal should have shamed social workers out of naive political correctness, but it has not. Children today in need of care are most likely to be placed with foster parents, rather than in homes. That does not mean there is no risk, just that victims are more isolated. Consider how many councils now boast of their active commitment to recruiting gay foster carers. Are they bright and brave enough to distinguish between genuine gay men - who would not dream of hurting children - and paedophiles who cynically hide behind the gay rights banner? I am not convinced - I know of one foster care manager jailed in 2005 for the sexual abuse of boys in care. Scandalously, the council responsible - one of Britain's most gay-friendly - has still held no inquiry into whether he was recruiting other paedophile friends as "carers". So how can anyone be sure the children he placed are safe? Source: website of the Daily Mail 'I have known about Jersey paedophiles for 15 years,' says award-winning journalist By EILEEN FAIRWEATHER - More by this author » Last updated at 11:13am on 2nd March 2008 The award-winning journalist who exposed terrible abuse in Islington children's homes now reveals horrifying links to sinister discoveries at Jersey's Haut de la Garenne. I met the frightened policeman at an isolated country restaurant, many miles from his home and station. Detective Constable Peter Cook had finally despaired, and decided to blow the whistle to a reporter. He was risking his career, so made me scribble my notes into a tiny pad beneath the tablecloth. He had uncovered a vicious child sex ring, with victims in both Britain and the Channel Islands, and he wanted me to get his information to police abuse specialists in London.
Incredibly, he claimed that his superiors had barred him from alerting them. He feared a cover-up: many ring members were powerful and wealthy. But I did not think him paranoid: I specialised in exposing child abuse scandals and knew, from separate sources, of men apparently linked to this ring. They included an aristocrat, clerics and a social services chief. Their friends included senior police officers. Repeatedly, inquiries by junior detectives were closed down, so I, a journalist, was asked to convey confidential information from one police officer to others. It seemed surreal.
I duly met trusted contacts at the National Criminal-Intelligence Squad. That was more than 12 years ago, and little happened - until now. Last weekend, a child's remains were found at a former children's home on Jersey amid claims of a paedophile ring. More than 200 children who lived at Haut de la Garenne have described horrific sexual and physical torture dating back to the Sixties. When I heard the news, my eyes filled with tears. I felt heartbroken, not least at my own powerlessness. I have known for more than 15 years about Channel Islands paedophiles victimising children in the British care system.
I was relieved that the truth was finally emerging. But I felt devastated. Children had probably been murdered. I had so not wanted to be right. I stood outside the forbidding Victorian building of Haut de la Garenne this week and watched grim-faced police in blue plastic forensic suits hunt its bricked-up secret basements for children's bones. Outside, a large cross commemorates the 35 former residents who died fighting for their country: "Their names liveth forever." Oh yes? What are the names of the children whose bodies may now be dug up - and why did no one miss and search for them earlier? Jersey's residents and political class must ask these questions.
Disturbing allegations about the murder of children in care have characterised other scandals I investigated in Britain, but today I can reveal for the first time the links between the abuse I uncovered at care homes in Islington, North London, and the horrifying discoveries on Jersey. I have never before written that 14-year-old Jason Swift, killed in 1985 by a paedophile gang, is believed to have lived in Islington council's Conewood Street home. Two sources claimed this when I investigated Islington's 12 care homes for The Mail on Sunday's sister paper, the London Evening Standard, in the early Nineties. But hundreds of children's files mysteriously disappeared in Islington and, without documentation, this was not evidence enough.
We did, however, prove that every home included staff who were paedophiles, child pornographers or pimps. Concerned police secretly confirmed that several Islington workers were believed "networkers", major operators in the supply of children for abuse and pornography. Some of these were from the Channel Islands or regularly took Islington children there on unofficial visits. In light of the grisly discoveries at Haut de la Garenne, the link now seems significant, but at the time we were so overwhelmed by abuse allegations nearer home that this connection never emerged. What we did report prompted the sort of vehement official denials that have come to characterise child abuse claims. Margaret Hodge, then council leader, denounced us as Right-wing "gutter journalists" who supposedly bribed children to lie. Our findings were eventually vindicated by Government-ordered inquiries, and two British Press Awards. Yet I knew we had only scraped the surface of Islington's corruption. Now Jersey police under deputy chief Lenny Harper - a 'new broom' outsider - have been secretly investigating a paedophile ring linked to the island's care homes for months, I have been struck by common factors with the British abuse scandals: innocent-sounding sailing trips, where children can be isolated and abused, away from prying eyes, then delivered to other abusers; the familiar smearing of whistle-blowers; and the suppression of damning reports. Jersey social worker Simon Bellwood was sacked early last year after speaking out, and popular health minister Stuart Syvret, 42, was fired in November after publicising the suppressed Sharp Report into abuse allegations. "The smears on me are water off a duck's back," this brave man told me yesterday in a St Helier cafe. But his hands shook. I have never assumed that the officials, politicians and police who cover up abuse scandals are all paedophiles, nor does Syvret. "They just want a quiet life and their competency unquestioned. I'm angrier with them than the abusers, and want several prosecuted for obstructing the course of justice. The police are considering charges," he added. Traditionally, police fear paedophile ring inquiries as expensive and unproductive. Traumatised witnesses can be hazy and collapse under cross-examination. Convictions are rare. Police therefore raid suspected abusers for paedophile pornography, which more easily yields convictions. Well - in theory. In June 1991, police in Cambridgeshire raided the home of Neil Hocquart who abused children in Britain and Guernsey and, with a social worker from Jersey, supplied child pornography for a huge sex ring. It should have been a major breakthrough. But, as DC Cook told me, it went horribly wrong. A handful of child sex-ring victims become "recruiters". They are not beaten but rewarded with gifts, money and 'love'. In return, their job is to procure other victims. Such a man, my whistle-blower believed, was Neil Frederick Hocquart. Hocquart, original surname Foster, was abused while in care in Norfolk and was eventually 'befriended' by an older man, merchant seaman Captain H. Hocquart of Vale, in Guernsey, whose surname he adopted. Captain Hocquart was not the only Channel Islands man with an interest in children in care. Satan worshipper Edward Paisnel, "The Beast of Jersey", was given a 30-year sentence in 1971 on 13 counts of raping girls and boys. The building contractor fostered children and played Father Christmas at Haut de la Garenne in the Sixties. Cambridgeshire police, in a joint operation with Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad (now the Paedophile Unit), raided Neil Hocquart's Swaffham Manor home in June 1991. They found more than 100 child-sex videos and 300 photographs of children. At nearby Ely they found his friend, Walter Clack, trying to dispose of a sick home video of a middle-aged man abusing a boy. Who were the children in these films and photos? Police needed properly to question these men. But they never got the chance. Hocquart secretly took an overdose of anti-depressant dothiepin and died at Addenbrooke's Hospital soon after his arrest. Was his suicide a last act of loyalty? DC Cook told me incredulously that a senior officer broke with normal procedure and informed Clack, before he was questioned, that the other suspect was dead. Clack then blamed the dead man for everything, and escaped with a £5,000 fine - and inherited one third of Hocquart's wealth, at his bequest. Wills featured strongly in the fortunesof the Islington and Channel Islands paedophiles. Police discovered that Neil Hocquart inherited his wealth from the Guernsey sea captain. But Captain Hocquart possibly paid dearly for befriending orphans: he died soon after making out his will in the younger man's favour. Scotland Yard detectives told me they found at least "two or three" wills of older men who died of apparent heart attacks shortly after leaving everything to Neil Hocquart. The officers cheerfully called him a "murderer". These deaths were never investigated: the suspect, after all, was now also dead. Hocquart wasn't the only person in his circle to become rich this way. A Jersey-born friend of Hocquart's, who started his childcare career on the island before becoming a key supplier of children from Islington's care homes to paedophile rings, similarly inherited a fortune. Nicholas John Rabet was for many years deputy superintendent of Islington council's home at 114 Grosvenor Avenue. He and a colleague, another single man later barred from social work by the Department of Health, both took children on unauthorised trips to Jersey. Allegations mounted but nothing was done. Rabet's opportunities to obtain victims massively increased after he befriended the widow of an American oil millionaire. She died after rewriting her will in his favour. He inherited her manor house at Cross in Hand near Heathfield, Sussex, where he opened a children's activity centre, and regularly invited children in Islington's care to stay. Hocquart spent £13,000 on quad bikes for the centre, called The Stables, and he and Walter Clack became "volunteers" there. Hocquart befriended one young boy and took him on a sailing trip, where there would be little risk of being spotted. Police found disturbing film from the trip of men spraying the naked child with water. But Hocquart left the boy another third of his money, and he denied abuse when questioned. Police also found at Hocquart's home naked photos of a boy of about ten, whom they learned was in the care of Islington social services. I shall call him Shane. Sussex police raided Rabet's children's centre. But he had plenty of warning and, they believed, emptied it of child pornography. However officers still found a "shrine to boys", with suggestive photographs everywhere, including pictures of Shane. They approached Shane, at his Islington children's home. He tearfully confirmed months of abuse. But their attempts to investigate further were thwarted by Islington Council. Many professionals had, for years, expressed grave fears about Rabet, and put their concerns in writing. But Islington falsely told Sussex officers it had no file material on Rabet or his alleged victim. Staff had in fact been ordered to find the complaints and deliver them to the office of Lyn Cusack, Islington's assistant director of social services - but they were handed over to Sussex police only when I revealed their existence. Islington's appalling mishandling of vital records was highlighted by the independent White inquiry into the abuse in Islington children's homes, which found that "at assistant director level . . . many confidential files were destroyed by mistake, although there is no evidence of conspiracy." During the investigation into Rabet, Islington also refused to interview any other children in care, or, scandalously, help Sussex police identify other children in Rabet's photos. With only Shane's evidence to rely on, police decided not to prosecute. I traced Shane. He was furious that Rabet was never prosecuted, but not surprised. "This goes right to the top," he said, "You have no idea how big this is." He showed me photos of another victim, a young Turkish boy with a sweet shy smile whom Rabet also regularly took from the Islington home to spend weekends at his manor house. Shane didn't know where the boy was now, he just disappeared. I was never able to find the boy, either. Many children in care are missed by no one. I retraced Shane two years ago to tell him that justice had finally caught up with Rabet. Third World police had succeeded where Britain's finest in Cambridgeshire, Sussex, London and Jersey had failed. Rabet fled to Thailand's notorious child sex resort of Pattaya after the White inquiry. He was arrested there in spring 2006 and charged with abusing 30 boys, some as young as six. Thai police believed he had abused at least 300. But he was never tried: on May 12, 2006, Rabet died of an overdose at the age of 57. Two other Jersey-born social workers, who for legal reasons I cannot name, also worked in Islington and later with young offenders. One arranged more of those mysterious sailing trips to Guernsey, the other sent children to Rabet's centre. Both were accused of abuse. In 1995, we reinvestigated Rabet and met DC Cook at the restaurant. He had gone through Hocquart's papers, investigated other members of the paedophile ring and met their victims. He was horrified at what he discovered. One man, for example, married a single mother purely so he could abuse her two young sons. "He told these poor children to keep quiet, that their mother had been lonely so long they would ruin her life if they said anything," the officer told me. The vicar who married them knew the groom was a paedophile but did not care: he was one too, and got his victims from a British care home. DC Cook travelled to Guernsey, which Hocquart regularly visited. There local CID officers drove him round, and he met two brothers whom Hocquart abused, then delivered them to a high-ranking, respected local man to rape. DC Cook traced another distraught victim in England who provided invaluable information about the man, based in Wales, who copied the ring's child pornography for distribution. This man clearly needed his door kicked in by police, as did Hocquart's other contacts in Britain and the Channel Islands. But no action was taken. Then word came from on high to drop his inquiries. DC Cook accepted that there might be an innocent explanation - that his local force might not want the financial burden of a national investigation. But he became deeply troubled when told not to forward his vital intelligence to specialist officers elsewhere. Britain's new National Criminal Intelligence Squad (NCIS) had the job of disseminating intelligence on paedophiles across the country. Would I, asked the troubled officer, take his information to the squad's Paedophile Unit for him? And so we pretended to share a meal while I secretly scribbled down the names, addresses, dates of birth and believed victims of dozens of suspects. My diary records that I met NCIS on January 4, 1996, at 10.30am, and I also channelled the intelligence to Scotland Yard. Neither, unfortunately, had the power to make local forces take action, so I was not optimistic. This was not the first time I had acted as a go-between. In 1994, another police officer was barred from investigating a paedophile ring, which included an Islington social worker of Channel Islands origin. We alerted Scotland Yard. This man was, I learned, involved with five overlapping paedophile rings - but he has never been convicted. Peter Cook has now retired and agreed to go on the record. He told me the partner of Hocquart's video producer was eventually imprisoned for abusing his own sons. "But we could have stopped so much else, so much earlier," he said. "The news from Jersey is horrifying. I've thought of Rabet all week. The hierarchy does not like these inquiries, they're expensive and produce embarrassment, so people shove it all under the carpet, they don't want to know even when children are dying. "There will be people now crawling out claiming they were always worried. What cowards, what bastards!" Jersey police confirmed this week it was aware of Nick Rabet and keen to learn more about his friends. Peter Cook told me: "I will help all I can." Michael Hames, the former head of Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad, once told me that he never doubted paedophiles were killing children in care. But the climate of disbelief was fierce, and he asked sadly: "What police chief will dare risk his career by hiring JCBs [to search for the bodies]?" Courageous Ulsterman Lenny Harper has. Deposed Jersey health minister Stuart Syvret told me: "My family has lived here since William the Conqueror. But if an indigenous police officer were in charge, this investigation would never have happened. Jersey is an oligarchy, where the elite look after each other." When I flew home late last night, in time for Mother's Day, I felt utter relief. This tiny island with its high-hedged lanes looked so pretty when the police series Bergerac was filmed here, but to me said just one thing: that there is no escape from here for a terrified child. If witnesses who want, finally, to help these tragically un-mothered children, now is the time to speak out. • Historical Abuse Enquiry Team: 0800 7357777
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. captured from the web July 14, 2008 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." Source: News of the World (UK)
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