News Reaches UK of Senator Arrest in Tinpot Dictatorship

News of the arrest of Senator Stuart Syvret and the charges brought against him under the Data Protection Act by the States of Jersey has finally reached UK shores as recorded by the Times, the Independent and Channel 4 News.

The politically-motivated arrest and charges are a blatant gagging attempt by the de facto dictatorship that runs the island in the interests of the rich and well-connected.

In his blog based campaign seeking justice for survivors of Jersey's culture of institutionalised abuse Senator Syvret has frequently named names and challenged those named to take action against him for defamation. Despite a readership approaching 200,000 - more than twice the island's population - no such action has been taken against Syvret. It must therefore be assumed that the named individuals are guilty and know that the Senator has compelling evidence that would emerge in court in any defamation case.

Yet the Jersey authorities seem intent on burying bad news by attempting to silence the leading whistleblower, rather than pursue alleged abusers. They announced recently that eleven investigations had been dropped due to `lack of evidence' and it is widely expected on the island that further such announcements will follow. Meanwhile abuse survivors, denied the redress of justice through prosecution of their abusers, are preparing to launch civil actions against the States of Jersey.

The ham-fisted attempt of the Jersey oligarchy to crush dissent betrays a mindset of presumed unquestioned power. At best this might be likened to the regime of a third-rate 1950s public school - but most current observers will find more compelling parallels in the actions of despotic rulers and power cliques in countries such as Zimbabwe, North Korea and Iran.

Beyond Belief

Colm O'Gorman's recently published book "Beyond Belief" is the account of his childhood abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest, the estrangement from his own family that was a direct result, and his long journey of recovery.

It has been a remarkable journey. In his late teens, haunted by the trauma of the abuse but unable to speak about it to anyone, he left his Wexford home, ending up homeless and destitute in Dublin. Some twenty years later, in 2003, he was chosen as one of Ireland's People of the Year.

The story of the intervening years charts his many struggles - finding a job and getting a roof over his head, coming to terms with his own sexuality, recovering the ability to trust and build relationships, building a successful career, the eventual reconciliation with his family, and ultimately his decision to confront his past and fight for justice.

The reason for his decision in 1998 finally to contact the police was the fear that his abuser, Father Sean Fortune, might still be claiming other victims. Even as he found the courage to speak out for the first time, he was still in denial of the events that had damaged him:

"Denial is a splendid defence mechanism; a comfortable kind of ignorance I learned to embrace with all the enthusiasm of those who had taught it to me. I'm not being sarcastic; denial is a powerful, powerful defence mechanism. If you can't change something, can't escape it or defeat it and if surrender to it has its own dark horrors, then denial becomes your very best friend. You can deny what's happening even as it is happening. I always found a spot on the wall as I was being pawed at and disappeared into it, placing my entire focus on that spot or stain or cabbage rose wallpaper pattern until it was over, until it was safe to return to my body and to the world." (p128)

The police quickly gathered a mass of compelling evidence against Fortune, not just from Colm O'Gorman, but from nearly 30 other victims. In court he was charged with 29 specific offences against 8 victims and pleaded not guilty. But the closure of having the charges tested in court was never to come. In March 1999, Sean Fortune committed suicide. He had taken a lethal cocktail of drugs and whiskey and was found dead in bed by his housekeeper. He had been remanded in custody pending trial but had been released on bail days earlier.

O'Gorman and others had been denied the prospect of justice by Fortune's final act. They would now only ever be his alleged victims. But by this time, however, much wider concerns about an apparent cover-up in the Catholic Church in Ireland had surfaced. Suspicion fell on Bishop Brendan Comiskey, and his predecessor in the Ferns Diocese Bishop Herlihy. Both men were said to have failed to act on a number of previous abuse allegations about Fortune, simply moving him from one pastoral assignment to another. Pointedly Bishop Comiskey issued a statement after Fortune's death inviting people "to remember him and his family in their prayers at this difficult time". O'Gorman widened his quest for justice by taking out civil actions against the Diocese and even against the Pope himself through the person of the Dublin Papal Nuncio.

O'Gorman was outraged by the silence of the Catholic Church in Ireland and its failure to act over repeated claims of sexual abuse by a significant number of its priests over many decades.

"Silence in the case of very great wrong, " he argues, " has a deeply corrupting effect. It diminishes and cheapens us all, and denies us the opportunity to confront that wrong and make it right. And yet, so often we stay silent in the face of abuse. If we can make it invisible and secret then we don't have to deal with it. But our silence has victims, and not always obvious ones. A hurt denied and ignored can rarely heal. More likely it will fester for years after the event." (p227)

Not only did the Catholic Church remain silent and inactive over a 14 year period when they were receiving regular complaints against Fortune, but O'Gorman discovered that as early as 1986 the Archbishop of Dublin had sought legal advice with regard to the Church's legal and financial liability if a priest was returned to the ministry after undergoing some form of treatment - and abused again. The liability was made clear and the Archbishop was advised that there was a duty in law to remove a priest from ministry if an investigation established that there was a basis for complaint.

"So what did the Archbishop do? Did he immediately remove from ministry priests who had been accused? Did he inform the police and social services of all accusations and ensure a proper investigation? Did he put in place a robust child protection policy? Did he inform his brother bishops of what he had discovered and alert them to this legal difficulty and their responsibility in law to remove credibly accused priests?

No, he did none of that.

Instead, on the advice of his lawyers he . . . took out an insurance policy to protect against the costs of any claims resulting from priests raping and abusing children. He did not act to protect children; he acted to protect the Church's money." (p 287)

It took until 2003 before the Diocese of Ferns finally settled with an admission of negligence and an award of damages. The action against the Papal Nuncio was dropped after he claimed diplomatic immunity.

O'Gorman's tireless campaign achieved a measure of justice for himself and many other victims who he has encouraged and supported; and he has contributed significantly to a cultural change in Ireland, where the people and the state are no longer content with a hands-off attitude towards abuse within the Church. This change offers a promise of a far more robust response to cases of clerical abuse, and an understanding of the need for effective child protection becoming ingrained within Irish society.

But worldwide the battle against the Catholic Church's tendency towards denial, cover-up and obstruction continues. While lessons may have been learned in the western world, there are signs that little has changed in developing countries. On a visit to Brazil, for example, O'Gorman uncovered many current cases of children abused by priests, together with a very similar pattern of cover-up and denial that had been common in Ireland, the USA and elsewhere twenty or thirty years earlier.

And the stench of guilt again goes right to the very top: Cardinal Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, sent a letter instructing all bishops that every case of sexual abuse involving a priest anywhere in the world was to be referred to the Vatican.

The message to the Roman Catholic Church in the biblical quotation with which O'Gorman ends the book could hardly be clearer:

Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. (1 John 3:18)

Archbishops' cover-up of child sex abuse revealed (Irish Independent 23/11/09)

Decline and Fall of the Jersey Empire

Some well-researched articles with a lot of background on the Jersey abuse scandal.

Cathy Scott-Clark Guardian 14 March

Eileen Fairweather Mail on Sunday 18 April

David James Smith Sunday Times 10 May

There is also an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons relating to the politicised police harassment of Jersey's leading dissident, Senator Stuart Syvret. It may sound like I am talking about Burma, China or Zimbabwe here. I make no apologies: I honestly don't think the comparison is too far fetched. The motion has been proposed by Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming. At the time of writing it has picked up 19 signatories, despite MPs' preoccupation with other matters; and the list includes Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative MPs.

The following article was published in The Guardian on 14 March 2009

Home to something evil

What really happened at Haut de la Garenne, the children's home at the centre of the Jersey care scandal last year? Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy report on a building that still houses some very dark secrets.

How Jersey's tourism bosses must have lamented the marketing slogan they chose last year: "Small enough to really get to know, yet still big enough to surprise."

It was supposed to mark a campaign to rejuvenate the holiday business.

Instead, it served to highlight a child abuse scandal that erupted on the island.

The story had first trickled out in November 2007, gaining almost no press attention. Following a covert police inquiry into allegations of mistreatment in the island's care homes, police and the NSPCC in London had appealed to former residents to come forward. By January 2008, hundreds were said to have made contact, reporting physical and sexual abuse, mostly at Haut de la Garenne, a grim, Victorian industrial school that had, until the mid-80s, served as Jersey's main children's home. Soon, Jersey was in the grip of one of the largest police child abuse inquiries seen anywhere in Britain.

How would the tiny island and its 88,000 residents hold up? They pride themselves on their traditionalism (the pound note survives here) and an independent spirit that locals refer to as the Jersey Way. The mantra, reflecting a closed community that knows how to look after itself, is credited with transforming the place from a bourgeois bucket-and-spade resort in the 50s into the oyster-shucking tax haven it is today. So potent is the lure of the island's low-tax, non-intrusive regime that the level of wealth required of prospective settlers has risen to stratospheric levels: only those who can pay a residency fee of about £1m and show assets in excess of £20m need apply. The lucky few include racing driver Nigel Mansell, golfer Ian Woosnam, broadcaster Alan Whicker and writer Jack Higgins, as well as hundreds of reclusive tycoons, who have made the island the third richest compact community in the world, after Bermuda and Luxembourg.

And then February 2008 arrived like a fist in the face. All anyone on the outside looking in could talk about was paedophiles. Then Jersey police announced they were investigating murder as well as complaints of physical and sexual abuse: witnesses said they recalled seeing the corpses of children at Haut de la Garenne; others claimed to have found bones buried beneath the foundations.

What made it worse for those on the inside was that the crisis had been started by an outsider, a Northern Irish copper called Lenny Harper, second-in-command of the island's police force, and the antithesis of the Jersey Way. Instead of managing bad news, Harper had teams of forensics specialists excavating for it. Every day, sitting on a granite wall outside the home, Harper regaled the world's press with stories that "something evil" had happened there - Haut de la Garenne had been a virtual charnel house. The first find was a sliver of human skull on 23 February. As the investigation progressed, the supposed tally rose to "six or more" bodies buried beneath the home.

By August last year, Harper had retired, to be replaced by a new policeman from the British mainland. More experienced than Harper, detective superintendent Mick Gradwell was a veteran whose cases included the deaths of 23 Chinese cockle-pickers at Morecambe Bay in 2004.

At his first press conference, on 12 November, Gladwell stunned reporters with his findings: "There were no bodies, no dead children, no credible allegations of murder and no suspects for murder." Only three bone fragments could be definitely said to be human, he said - and they dated from the 14th to 17th centuries. Newspapers ran gleeful headlines: "Lenny Harper lost the plot." By the time we arrived on Jersey in February 2009, a year after the digging had begun, it was as if Harper and his inquiry had never existed.

The Jersey establishment was triumphant. One of the island's most senior social workers expressed a view we were to hear many times: "I'm not saying all the former children's home residents are liars but some have misremembered," he said. "Some have embellished and a small number have been telling porkies to get money." Nothing was wrong with the island. Jersey was off the hook. It was all a cock-up.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Among the thousands of statements that still line the shelves of Harper's old incident room, and in the testimony of former residents and workers at Haut de la Garenne and other institutions across Jersey, many of whom we tracked down and interviewed, harrowing stories are buried.

Over a period of three decades, residents of the care homes made repeated complaints that they were being sexually and physically abused. A series of damning reports was produced, following confidential inquiries into these institutions, most of which went unheeded. Few prosecutions ensued.

It is true to say there were no corpses. However, the testimony provides compelling evidence of a catastrophic failure within Jersey's children's services that ran a regime so punitive, they preferred to lock up problem children en masse than deal with them in their own homes: four times more children, proportionately, are imprisoned in Jersey than in its nearest neighbour, France. And what happened to them once in care was something that Harper's team, had they not been distracted by murder plots, came close to exposing.

Harper clashed with the Jersey Way as soon as he was appointed head of police operations in 2002. A career officer, he had been office-bound for a few years and on Jersey he wanted to get back to real policing. Summing him up, one former Jersey colleague told us that Harper "was a bit of a pit bull" who found himself on a small island where discretion and subtlety were valued above all else. Early attempts at making his mark, including a clear-out of illegally held weapons and a curtailment of the often cosy relationship between local police and businessmen, made him instant enemies. Harper, who now lives in Ayrshire, told us: "I started getting death threats. But I'd been on the streets of Northern Ireland."

His most significant problem was recognising the limits of his power. Jerseymen trace their ancestry back to the medieval Dukedom of Normandy and a feudal culture survives. The island is divided into 12 parishes, each governed by a connétable or head constable, who between them raise a private volunteer police force, the Honorary Constabulary. It might sound like a toytown operation, but these so-called "hobby bobbies" form a network of neighbours, friends and relatives licensed to arrest and charge fellow islanders through powers vested in them by the 500-year-old States Assembly.

The assembly - made up of the connétables, their deputies and 12 elected senators, many of them multimillionaires - is supervised by the bailiff, Jersey's highest officer, who is appointed by the Queen, while the task of upholding the law and keeping the hobby bobbies in check falls to the attorney general. These two key posts are currently held by brothers, Sir Philip and William Bailhache, members of one of the oldest and most powerful families on Jersey. At the bottom of the heap are the 240 officers of the States of Jersey Police, imposed on the island in the 50s but even today requiring attorney general Bailhache's approval to charge anyone with anything more serious than a traffic citation.

It was a system that frustrated newcomer Lenny Harper, until he found an ally inside the attorney general's office. This was a mainlander who similarly mistrusted the Jersey Way and told Harper of a "web of child abusers" who he claimed all knew each other. He also alleged the attorney general's office appeared reluctant to prosecute. When we put this to William Bailhache, he replied that Harper had repeatedly suggested his office was "soft" on child abuse - this is untrue, he says, and so is the suggestion that he was reluctant to prosecute. "I have signed many indictments for people charged with child abuse offences, some of them historic. Several cases have resulted in substantial sentences of imprisonment."

Harper recalls: "I was cautious at first. The allegations reached into many worthy organisations, including the Sea Cadets and the St John Ambulance, and there were whispers about establishment men. One name that kept cropping up was Paul Every, a commanding officer in the island's Sea Cadets." Every had also served as a senior civil servant.

Harper dug around, discovering that Every's name had surfaced in connection with child porn offences during Operation Ore in 1999. In late 2004, Harper applied for a warrant to search the Sea Cadets' HQ. He was refused. Harper then contacted the Jersey Sea Cadets directly: "They completely ignored me and refused to sack Every." When the States Assembly, too, declined to act, and Harper received a message from the attorney general's office that it was reluctant to prosecute, Harper began to suspect a cover-up. He says, "What made things more fraught was that some of my own officers were in the Sea Cadets." (On this case, the attorney general comments: "It is absolutely not the case that I decided not to prosecute Every. It is true that one of my officials wrongly gave Mr Harper that impression.")

Harper pressed on, and in January 2005 had Every arrested and his home computer seized. On it, police recovered a cache of child porn and evidence that Every had scoured the internet for "naked sea cadets". Still unable to persuade the local Sea Cadets to act, Harper wrote in August 2005 to the youth organisation's national HQ in London, and finally Every was removed from his position. The following month, Harper arrested Roger James Picton, another Sea Cadet volunteer; Picton was found guilty of indecent assault on a schoolgirl in February 2006 and Every was convicted of child porn offences that December.

In early 2007, convinced there was a broad network of abusers operating on the island and mindful of Jersey's steadfast refusal to introduce a sex offenders' register, Harper began reviewing statements made by Sea Cadets who had alleged abuse. He discovered that many had been in care, especially in Haut de la Garenne. Calling up their care files, Harper found that a member of Jersey police's family protection team, Brian Carter, had been there before him. Carter was no longer in the force, but finding him on the island was easy. It turned out that in 2004 Carter had noticed an unusually high incidence of suicide among men who had passed through Haut de la Garenne. Reviewing the records of 950 former residents, he discovered that a significant number had complained of sexual and physical abuse, describing similar acts and perpetrators, going back to the 50s. Shockingly, even though supervisors at the homes had dutifully noted the complaints, none had been properly investigated.

Carter had sought out victims and taken statements detailing how they were allegedly beaten and raped by older children and staff, and also by Sea Cadet officers, St John Ambulance volunteers and at least one senator in the States Assembly. In April 2006, Carter handed the dossier to Jersey CID. Nothing happened.

Suspecting that allegations of crimes against hundreds of children were being brushed under the carpet, Carter quit the force in late 2006. Now, Harper alerted Graham Power, head of Jersey's police, to the dossier. Appalled, Power contacted the Association of Chief Police Officers which launched an independent inquiry, currently being handled by South Yorkshire. In September 2007, Power gave Harper the go-ahead to launch a full-scale child abuse investigation, with Carter re-employed as a civilian investigator. Together they set up an incident room at Jersey police headquarters in Rouge Bouillon, St Helier. Detective inspector Alison Fossey, another outsider, originally from Strathclyde, was called in to help sift through the first of 4,000 children's files.

Abuse claims were rife. Haut de la Garenne was at the centre; other child facilities on the island were also implicated, including a secure unit called Les Chenes and a "group home", Blanche Pierre. Harper ordered his men to find and interview as many victims as they could - something that proved difficult because several former care home residents had already spoken to Carter and were disillusioned when nothing came of it.

Fearful that his inquiry would collapse, it was then that Harper went public, making an appeal for witnesses to come forward, with the backing of the NSPCC. "I was summoned to the chief minister's office and given a rollicking," Harper claims. "CM Frank Walker told me, 'Stop calling these people victims. It's not proven yet. You can't say that. Do you realise what you are doing here can bring the government down?' " We tried to contact Walker, but he declined to respond.

A firestorm now swirled across the island. Harper recalls: "The NSPCC opened a helpline and the phones went haywire." Former Haut residents talked of being slammed into walls, punched and slapped. One victim from Les Chenes claimed to have been knocked out by a staff member and told police, "The supervisor put a foot on my chest and stood on me, screaming, 'This is what we do to scum like you!' " Former care home children also detailed sadistic sexual abuse, with residents raping their dorm mates and supervisors doing the same.

Dozens of potential protagonists were thrown up by the new inquiry, the same names having also been identified by victims in the Carter report. One of them, a former Jersey senator, Wilfred Krichefski, who died in 1974, was known as the "Fat Man" among Haut residents who accused him of multiple rapes. Other Haut victims claimed to have been "lent out" to men who took them sailing into international waters before forcing them to have sex - crimes thus committed outside Jersey's jurisdiction. Colin Tilbrook, a former headmaster at Haut de la Garenne in the 60s, was repeatedly named as having roamed the corridors at night with a pillow tucked under his arm with which to stifle the screams of the children he raped. Jersey social services had never investigated Tilbrook, who went on to secure a job in the early 70s on the British mainland. When news of the Jersey investigation became public, Tilbrook's foster daughter, by then in her 30s, came forward to reveal that he had repeatedly raped her when she was a child.

Like Krichefski, Tilbrook was dead, as were others accused, including Jim Thomson, the superintendent of Haut de la Garenne in 1979, who was repeatedly accused of abuse. It was the living that presented Harper's team with the knottiest problems. The list of those who had worked at the homes included the serving education director, Tom McKeon, and his deputy, Mario Lundy. Both were interviewed by police earlier this year; both vigorously deny any wrongdoing.

The inquiry was delivered a blow when, in January 2008, Harper's deputy, DI Alison Fossey, went to the mainland on a strategic command course. Fossey had a law degree and had worked in child protection for most of her career. She was a details person, while Harper had a more scattergun approach. In her absence, the investigation was transformed by lurid claims of bodies and murder. One police report from this time states, "Among the [Haut] victims were a few who said that children had been dragged from their beds at night screaming and had then disappeared." A local builder who had done renovations there in 2003 said he had found what he thought were children's bones and shoes. These items had been disposed of by the Jersey pathologist. Harper remained suspicious. On 5 February 2008, he flew to Oxford to take advice from LGC Forensics, a crime scene service used by forces across the UK.

Two weeks later, an LGC team encamped at Haut de la Garenne. A squad of technicians in white suits pored over the site. Central to it all were two sniffer dogs, Eddie and Keela, which Harper took to describing as his "canine assets". They were veterans deployed in the search for missing Madeleine McCann in Portugal, although the controversy caused there should have served as a warning to Harper. In Portugal, the dogs had crawled over a car used by Gerry and Kate McCann, and sounded the alarm. The Portuguese police then claimed that the McCanns had killed their daughter, when what the dogs had actually picked up on was both parents' legitimate proximity to death, working in hospitals.

At Haut de la Garenne, the dogs made straight for the place where in 2003 the builder said he had found bones. A senior police officer recalled, "They did cartwheels on the spot. And Harper went through the roof." As in Portugal, the dogs had smelled something but could not differentiate between ancient remains and a contemporary murder. But at 2pm on 23 February, caution cast aside, Harper called a press conference, telling reporters police believed that the partial remains of a child were buried there.

Over the following months, £7.5m would be spent sifting 100 tonnes of earth. By the time DI Fossey returned, there were 65 milk teeth, 165 bone fragments and two lime-lined pits dominating the inquiry.

Meanwhile the child abuse investigation, which had already identified 160 alleged victims, was, Harper claimed, taking flak. Harper was called to the attorney general's office after his team charged a former Haut warder with indecently assaulting underage girls at the home from 1969 to 1973. William Bailhache demanded that a lawyer appointed by his office be inserted into the inquiry to assess the evidence before any arrest or charges could be preferred - common practice on the mainland, he says.

The police sent the lawyer details of a further five suspects, including a former police officer and two couples. Hearing nothing for two months, Harper went ahead and arrested the 50-year-old former police officer on 12 June last year. The attorney general's lawyer had the man released the next day, citing a lack of evidence. Likewise he vetoed charges being laid against one of the two couples. That left only Jane and Alan Maguire, a couple now living in France, and their case, too, went nowhere.

Bailhache told us: "It would no doubt have been much easier for me personally if I had simply waved prosecutions through. However, had I done so I would have been failing in my duty... Actions on my part which Mr Harper no doubt interpreted as frustrating a prosecution were rather directed at ensuring that any prosecution which was properly brought had the best chance of succeeding."

In the end, Harper charged only two other individuals, both peripheral, one of whom, in a terrible irony, also claims to have been a child victim of abuse at Haut de la Garenne in the 70s.

Once Lenny Harper retired in August 2008, and the murder inquiry was discredited, some island officials were concerned that the investigation into the abuse allegations might collapse, too.

The alarm had been raised in 1979, following the death of a two-year-old at the hands of a foster parent. Two years later, visiting social workers David Lambert and Elizabeth Wilkinson, concerned that none of the proposed improvements had been put in place, launched a full-blown inspection. Their confidential report, taking a broader look at Jersey society, concluded that while the island was reinventing itself as a haunt for jetsetters, there was a neglected group afflicted by a "high incidence of marital breakdown, heavy drinking, alcoholism and psychiatric illness". These problems were exacerbated by a small island mentality that demanded everyone "conform to acceptable public standards".

Children rebelled in small ways: dropping litter, swearing, facing down the police, having parties on the beach. On Jersey, all of these "offences" were, according to Lambert and Wilkinson, often sufficient to get a child into serious trouble. And once children had come to the attention of the police, it was almost inevitable that they would enter Jersey's care home system. Without any provision for children to be bailed, most were incarcerated on remand, placed alongside children taken from their families, often for such reasons as "giving the mother a break". In this rural backwater, one in 10 children had been in care, a ratio far higher than on the mainland.

Once in care, the real problems began, with predatory residents, some with criminal records, bunked with the vulnerable. Cases were almost never reviewed; Lambert and Wilkinson found in one group of 65 children, 36 had remained invisible inside the system for more than 10 years. This was the more likely if parents made little fuss, or even, in some cases, left the island. One of the invisible told us how he had been incarcerated at Haut de la Garenne for being repeatedly sarcastic to the hobby bobbies; he stayed in care for eight years, he says, without ever seeing a trained social worker, during which time he claimed to have been raped by adults and fellow inmates alike.

At the time of Lambert and Wilkinson's visit, Haut was run by superintendent Jim Thomson. Like many then working in the Jersey care system, he had no professional qualifications. Thomson, who would be accused of sexual and physical abuse in Harper's 2008 inquiry, was found by Lambert and Wilkinson to have created a "highly unsatisfactory" environment that focused on corporal punishment for "boys aged 10 to 15", some of them locked in remand cells for days at a time. It was an institution ripe for abusers, especially at night when only one staff member was on duty for 45 children sleeping in four distant wings. Haut was "not suitable for any of the tasks in which it is currently engaged".

Nick (not his real name) was resident at the time. He told us he had been taken, aged 11, to Haut de la Garenne in "a large white van with bars on its windows" after his mother abandoned him in 1975. He said: "The dorm was at the end of a rabbit warren of corridors and consisted of eight hospital-style beds lined up against opposite walls. Most of the boys were in their teens and had been in the home for years." No sooner had he arrived than he was beaten up and his possessions stolen. "At night they would never come to check up on you. The younger boys would be tied down on their beds and raped by the older lads." He survived only because he was a boxer and he was allowed to stay with foster parents at weekends, a time when adults were said to come and prey on the children left behind.

According to the 1981 report, other homes caused concern, too, for their punitive regimes; chief among them was Blanche Pierre with its new house parents, Jane and "Big Al" Maguire. But the extent of the allegations against the Maguires would not be properly investigated for another 18 years. One of their former charges was Dannie Jarman, now 28, who moved into Blanche Pierre when her mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1985, ending up in a hospice. "I wasn't allowed to visit her," Dannie told us. "Two weeks after her funeral, I was told she was dead. I was repeatedly told that our mum hadn't brought us up right and had never wanted me." Other children later levelled accusations about the extremely harsh conditions.

No one would have known about it had Dannie Jarman not got drunk one night in 1998 and thrown a brick through the Maguires' bedroom window. When the Maguires called the police, former residents, including Dannie, were brought in for questioning. After they repeated their allegations of abuse, the police turned around their inquiry and charged the Maguires instead.

The then attorney general, Michael Birt, today the island's deputy bailiff, sought advice from counsel who suggested that while this home "might possibly have been one that was run on a somewhat Dickensian basis, the strict regime applied by the Maguires would have not been regarded as unusual in pre-politically correct times. Indeed it is quite likely members of the jury would have some sympathy for people who in order to instil a sense of discipline in their charges threaten to wash a child's mouth out with soap and water." The counsel suggested: "The evidence is extremely weak." Birt, who declined to comment when we approached him, dropped the charges. Following an internal inquiry, Jane Maguire was subsequently sacked by Jersey social services.

Another inquiry focused on Jersey's elite Victoria College after the head of maths was jailed for four years in April 1999 for indecently assaulting a pupil. In his report, Stephen Sharp, a former chief education officer for Buckinghamshire, criticised senior staff and school governors, who included bailiff Sir Philip Bailhache, for failing to act speedily or adequately. It had taken 15 years for the teacher to be caught and Sharp concluded: "The handling of the complaint was more consistent with protecting a member of staff and the college's reputation than safeguarding the best interests of pupils."

Haut de la Garenne eventually closed in 1986, Blanche Pierre in 2001, but when Kathie Bull, a British child behaviour expert, was called in the following year to inspect the island's children's services, she found the situation had worsened. So many children were now being locked up that the island's institutions operated a "hot-bedding" system to cater for them, which in the case of Les Chenes included children sleeping on a pool table. Discipline was meted out in The Pits, a punishment block consisting of four bare concrete cells. The island's youth justice system was backwards and brutal, Bull concluded, and she made 50 recommendations, including the establishment of a Children's Executive.

Four years later, when Simon Bellwood, a British social worker, was employed to close Les Chenes and move the secure unit to a new, purpose-built site, he was startled to find the old regime still in force: "I met children who spent months at a time, near naked, in bare, concrete punishment blocks." When he made public his concerns in 2007 - following a long-running dispute with some of the old regime who were still in positions of authority - he was sacked; the then health minister, senator Stuart Syvret, who had vocally championed those who alleged they had been abused, was voted out of office for his "intemperate and ill-considered statements in the assembly".

Two years on, Mick Gradwell's team is trying to pick up the pieces of the abuse inquiry. The attorney general has been handed evidential files against key suspects by the police, and says he expects to make his decisions in the next few weeks. Bellwood, Syvret and others are keeping up the pressure on Jersey's States Assembly, and lobbying UK justice minister Jack Straw to call a full, independent inquiry (the subject of a court hearing to be held in London next Tuesday). But, many of the victims of the care homes of Jersey are convinced that nothing can outflank an island establishment that often saw little wrong in what had gone before and is reluctant to embrace the future prescribed by the social work experts.

The guardians of the Jersey Way continue to thrive, such as the sprightly Iris Le Feuvre, elected to the States Assembly for almost 20 years, who as president of the education committee oversaw Haut de la Garenne, Les Chenes and Blanche Pierre during some of their most troubled times. Now retired, the 80-year-old, whose husband Eric was for years a hobby bobby, lives in St Lawrence parish. "Granny's coming," she shouts as an over-excitable Tibetan spaniel barks at the gate, and ushers us into her front room. Le Feuvre, who collected an MBE from Buckingham Palace in 2002, says of Haut de la Garenne: "It's been a terrible business. But mostly I feel for William and Sir Philip Bailhache. They've been through so much."

But what of the victims? She smiles: "Oh, such a fuss has been made. My father always used a belt on me. It did me the world of good."

Nobody Came by Robbie Garner and Toni Maguire, a review

Nobody Came
- the appalling true story of brothers cruelly abused in a Jersey care home -
by Robbie Garner with Toni Maguire.

Robbie Garner was taken into care in Jersey at the age of five following the catastrophic breakdown of his mother's dysfunctional relationship with her partner, his short life already blighted by callous maternal neglect. This would have been around 1960. Dates, like some other details, are not spelled out - the book is concerned with the emotional landscape its author endured, rather than attempting a documentary account.

With him to the Sacre Coeur orphanage went his three year old brother, Davie, while older brother John was dispatched to the Haut de la Garenne children's home, where Robbie was later to follow.

`Nobody Came' is the story of the horrific emotional, physical and sexual abuse Robbie experienced and witnessed in these two `care' establishments. He finally decided to tell the story he had kept buried for so many years when Haut de la Garenne hit the headlines in 2007 with allegations of decades of abuse. A disclaimer states that "in order to protect privacy, some names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed . . . and the staff mentioned in this book are composite characters, drawn from the experiences of those whom the author remembers." No doubt this has also been necessary because of the ongoing investigation of historical abuse claims surrounding Haut de la Garenne, and the hope that perpetrators will eventually be brought to court.

Toni Maguire is herself an abuse victim whose bestselling works draw on her own tragic childhood. She is now helping other people to tell their stories and the chemistry here has worked to very good effect. The writing is a model of clarity. The story told in a direct and straightforward way is highly readable, moving - and deeply shocking.

Were the nuns of Sacre Coeur misguided religious zealots or manipulative abusers hiding behind the cloak of religion? The book simply tells the story of their barbaric cruelty and leaves the reader to wonder. But the sense of authenticity is enhanced by the young Robbie's sensitivity, even at such a tender age, to the occasional nun who appears troubled by the nature of the regime in which she too is trapped. One such is`Sister Claire', who to her eternal credit (composite character or not) finds ways to practise subversive acts of kindness.

On graduating to Haut de la Garenne, Robbie finds himself in a nightmarish world of casual brutality, where physical and sexual bullying is commonplace and where the depraved lusts of certain members of staff are given free rein in ritualistic orgies of abuse. Whether this extends to murder it is not possible to say, but there are unexplained disappearances, and one of Robbie's friends is driven to suicide. Robbie is acutely aware of the suffering of other boys (and in due course girls) and counts himself lucky that he is not pretty enough to become a `favourite'.

If Haut de la Garenne has a saving grace it is the quality of the food, so someone at least is doing the job they are paid for.

The sense of authenticity that pervades `Nobody Came', notwithstanding the disclaimer, is in stark contrast to the increasingly convoluted efforts of the Jersey establishment to sweep the whole Haut de la Garenne tragedy conveniently under the carpet. Their confident assertion that `there were no murders at Haut de la Garenne' would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. There may not be compelling evidence of such crimes, but that is very far from proof that no murder happened, especially when complete records of the children taken into care appear not to have been kept.

Happily, Robbie Garner has proved to be a survivor. His book too will survive. And it will continue to have a powerful and compelling voice for as long as justice for the victims of the Jersey care system remains elusive.

Compassion and Hope for Jersey Victims

I have extracted a sequence of related postings from Jersey Senator Stuart Syvret's blog which occurred over the 16th and 17th of January. Rather than just copy and paste, I have edited out those postings that seemed to be heading off in other directions (as blogs will do) in order to leave what I hope is a coherent thread. Many of the contributions are submitted anonymously. I have identified these contributors as Anonymous(1), Anonymous(2) etc. and have used this device to indicate where follow-up postings seem to have been made by an earlier anonymous contributor, though obviously I may have missed other instances. Oh, and I admit to correcting a few spelling errors because, well just because - it's something I do.

If you are in any way suspicious about the editing liberties I have taken, or just curious about what I have left out, I encourage you to visit the source, Senator Syvret's blog. You should visit it anyway -it is a shining beacon of light in the quest for truth and justice in the Kafkaesque world of Jersey politics. You will see below that on the evening of 16th January it reaches the milestone of 100,000 readers in just under a year, a remarkable indicator of the power of the people's media.

The thread is about child abuse. It includes contributions from a number of survivors of abuse in Jersey and elsewhere. It highlights the terrible dilemma of abuse victims in trying to decide whether to come forward with accounts of the horrific experiences they have buried for decades as a mechanism for survival. And it is marked by the collective and individual compassion of the contributors.

It starts with a desperately sad account from someone living in France.

My Life in France said...

A lesson too late for the learning (for me anyway)

Well here I am, in France and now very isolated. Many months ago, after much soul searching and advice given by my wife and GP , and against my better judgment I was persuaded to talk to the States of Jersey police who visited me here in France, with regard to my experiences whilst resident at Haut de la Garenne.

I had never, ever confided in anyone (not even my wife) before, and looking back now, as my family life lay in ruins around me, I wish it had stayed that way.

After the initial robust support I received from my soon to be ex-wife, I find myself once again alone, and locked into a time warp which like a fool and against all of my natural instincts I had re-opened the portal to.

An entrance way to an evil, hard and cruel world which had remained firmly closed and sealed for near on forty years.

As I write this, and, as I have done many times over the passing decades, I wish that my life experiences had been different.

When I was a child and I looked at my friends who all seemed to have normal, loving, and caring childhoods , I often wished that I could be them.

Just once, I used to think to myself. Just so I knew what it was like to wake up in a warm, clean, safe and loving environment where there were no bogymen.

An environment which in my very late life as a parent, I have tried so very hard to provide for my still so very young little girls.

However, you know the old saying about history repeating itself? Well, in my case it’s true. Having suffered the heart-break of a child who witnessed my father disappear through the front door with suitcase in hand.

I now find it’s my turn to leave. The stress that reliving my childhood experiences has put on me personally as an adult, can only be known by those who have suffered the deprivations and poverty that the Jersey system has encouraged century after century.

Up until recently, I personally believe that I had put my childhood nightmare world, of poverty, deprivation and abuse behind me. In fact, I know I had.

That is until I let others in. Others, who although well intentioned, had little or no idea as to the power of gene they were resurrecting from the dead.

Finding myself abandoned by those whom I thought cared, and for the health of my children, like my father before me, I am now packing my bags to leave. I love my little girls with all my heart, but have been left in little doubt to me that there is no longer room for me at this particular inn.

I wish that I had kept my dark and sinister secrets safely locked away. I believe, that had I not been so honest and frank about my childhood that, the personal catastrophe that I am now experiencing, and the hurt and the pain the my little girls will soon experience would have been avoided.

Perhaps there are those who should think very carefully before they start looking for the key to open the door - a door which may be better left firmly locked.

Senator Stuart Syvret said...

Your Life in France.

I found your story very moving.

My e-mail address is lower down. I think you should e-mail me so I can see if there is anything I can do to help.

Your life - which you had thought 'fixed' - has remained broken - or been broken - by having to revisit these terrible issues.

Tragedy upon tragedy.

Your story illustrates just how the consequences of child abuses do ruin so many lives.

Just how terribly damaging and difficult it is to overcome.

Which is why we must fight abuse - and speak out against it.

I know that must seem of very little comfort to you in your circumstances.

But I believe you did the right thing for the cause of fighting, exposing and attempting to prevent child abuse.

I know a number of survivors who, at times, have questioned whether they did the right thing by opening up to the police - especially after many complaints made in the past simply being ignored.

But the great majority of those I know ultimately decided that speaking out was/is the right thing to do.

Though having said that - I couldn't begin to describe the despair and devastation experienced by many survivors who - this time - finally - believed they were going to get justice - only to see the Jersey establishment attempt to character-assassinate the only two leaders the Jersey cops have ever had who took the abuse issues seriously.

This coupled with the obstructions to charging and prosecution we see by Bill Bailhache has also been very difficult to endure.

But - do not think for one instant that the war is lost.

It isn't. We're confident the court in London will ultimately decide that Mr. Straw has to look at the plain malfeasances of the administration of justice in Jersey.

But - for you personally - you sound as though you need support at this difficult time. Are friends and family helping you?

Would it help to speak with Ray of the NSPCC, who has been based in Jersey for the duration?

My e-mail address is:

st.syvret@gov.je

Please e-mail me directly - and I'll see if there is anything I can do to help.

Be strong.

Stuart.

Zoompad said...

Dear `My Life in France',

I really felt for you as I read your post. I was in a similar situation with my fiancee, recently.

When the Haut de la Garenne story first broke, it opened up everything inside me once more - although I was one of the Staffordshire Pindown children, not Jersey. My friends and fiancee saw me fall apart - I was also being dragged through the secret family courts, it was a terrible time. I thought that my relationship would be smashed up - it seemed like it would not survive - I made my fiancee cry because of all the hurtful things that I said to him - the poor man, the only person I felt that I could safely shout at was him, and so I did, and cried and made his life like hell for a while. All that anger and hurt had to come out somewhere, and my lovely man took the full force of it. One day, I realised that we were breaking up - he just couldn't take any more of it, it was making him ill, and so I prayed, I lay on the floor and asked God to help me. And I decided there and then that we were NOT going to break up, they were NOT going to smash me up any more, and God would NOT allow me to be hurt any more.

I don't know if me writing this will help you at all, I really wish I could say something, but I will say this : I thought that my fiancee was thinking things about me that were not true - I thought that he would be better off without me, but that is not true, I had somehow convinced myself that he did not love me any more, and that certainly was not true. We had a long talk - a quiet talk, with no crying or shouting, about these things, and then we asked God to keep us safe. I was so wrong about my fiancee's feelings, he does love me, very much, but in all the shouting and crying how could he express it? How could I know what he was feeling?

In my experience, women don't fall out of love so very easily as you might think, especially if there are children to remind you of the man you once loved. I know a lot of women, and we are not as fickle as men might think we are. A person might mistakenly think that love has died, when all that has really happened is that love is hidden behind a dark cloud. I don't know if this is any help, please ignore it if it isn't.

Zoompad

Anonymous said...

Life In France

I too had a difficult childhood and can totally empathise with you in wishing for what other children appeared to have,,,,but I didn't,,,,,,,,,,,in adulthood my husband left my and our child....and I felt totally alone and worthless once more...an only child myself I had no one to turn to..........I have put it all in a box in my mind now and I don't talk about it, my story is tragic but I survived it all.

What got me through the tough times of reflection was actually talking about it with friends and acquaintances - and I can tell you that it is crucial that you do that - so take any help in that area that you can get ...you may be surprised how much strength you will get from that and then you too may be able to put the past back in the box.

You were brave to open up and by doing so you have helped others, do not be too hard on yourself. Good luck.

Proud Survivor said...

Life in France

Leaving your little girls is not the answer for you or for them because how ever hard you try you can't leave your troubles behind - they travel with you.

When the news broke last February, I agonised for months before coming forward and would have had a total breakdown if I had not found a wonderful counsellor who has helped and supported me through this. I agree with Stuart that you need someone who is trained and experienced in this area to talk to. If you go on the BACP website you may find details of English counsellors living in France.

Like you I had lived with my memories of HDLG for over 40 years and none of my family were aware that I had been in there as none of them lived in Jersey and my mother had cleared off after leaving me there and she died over 20 years ago. Since I made my statement I have gradually managed to tell my family and my friends and the support I have received has been amazing. My partner and my grown-up children have been distressed to know what I experienced but it has made us closer than we have ever been.

I do not regret coming forward although I am angry and frustrated by the delays. coverups and distortions of the truth that have followed.

One thing I do know is that whether children died or not in HDLG, there was savage physical abuse that I witnessed; emotional abuse that damaged my self-esteem and that of countless children and sexual abuse that cannot be denied. I wonder how some people can live with themselves and some must be spinning in their graves!

There is lots of support for you here and although I stay anonymous to protect myself and those I love, I would willingly communicate with you by email through Stuart if you wish.

This is definitely not over and I really hope we will all meet up for a big party when justice is finally done!

Proud survivor

Life in France said...

Zoompad & anon. You both talk a lot of sense! Thank you

From France

Anonymous(2) said...

Life in France

I dont often comment on here but my heart goes out to you fella - youve been let down badly twice by Jersey and I hope some of the spineless bastards who continue to cover up this child abuse will one day be exposed...but lets not hold our breath eh?.

Please dont blame your coppers because the lower ranks can only do so much mate,especially since your AG is doing such a good job(if you catch my meaning!)-the whole establishment here is tainted and I sometimes wonder how far up the rot actually goes?

You are not alone in having your life shattered yet again by the "Jersey system"-believe me!.

Ah well-time for an exit back to my housing estate "oop north"-the air around here is a little ripe for me!..Good luck to you fella.

J'ai espoir mieux avoir!.

Anonymous(3) said...

It's a shame nobody is commenting on who is responsible for unearthing those of us who kept it closed up and were forced to release the demons to satisfy their politcal agenda.
Spinless eh?

Anonymous(4) said...

Re: Life in France

You have more support than you yet know. When Lenny Harper left, many of us predicted the officials would succeed in covering up all he had brought to light.

But, just look at the numbers on this blog. Stuart has about 100,000 new individuals who have read it, and many of us follow the blog regularly. Lenny continues to support the Jersey victims and refuses to be silenced. Stuart never backs down in his defense of justice and truth for victims.

Truth just has a way of pushing its way out past the frantic spin of the Warcup handlers and house rag. Now books are already being published with stories of survivors of HDLG. More will be written, and officials will be named.

You will not be alone in this.

Newfan said...

Senator,

Just wanted to send you warm wishes and congratulations from USA readers who support your efforts on behalf of abused children. Your blog has become truly global and will continue to grow in influence, as it should.

- Newfan

Senator Stuart Syvret said...

Unearthing the Past

I’m very sorry you feel that way. I know such things are immensely difficult – I’ve come to know many survivors.

But nearly all of those I know feel they have done the right thing.

For some – confronting the past and opening up has been a deeply debilitating experience – for all kinds of reasons – but most people tell me they have found new strength and purpose in fighting this evil.

All any of us can do – is to do what we think is right under the circumstances. And I have had no doubt that fighting this battle was the right thing for me to do.

At risk of repetition, as I’ve explained the chronology of events many times before – it was not me who chose to make this whole episode a “political” issue.

As the rock-solid evidence shows – as the chronology demonstrates – it was Frank Walker and the rest of his Council of Ministers who chose to use the child protection failures in order to further their “political agenda” against me – back in the summer of 2007 – when they thought they could carry on the concealing once they’d got rid of me.

And the issues I discovered initially didn’t relate to HDLG – but far more recent – indeed, contemporary - failures. The HDLG investigation was a police exercise.

I respect your opinion – but have to disagree with it – not least because many other survivors tell me they’re relived the subject is finally being confronted, and hope that children will be better protected in future.

I share their views – and if that be a “political agenda” – so be it.

Stuart.

Need I say more?

Anonymous(5) said...

People can run but they can't hide. The truth will come out eventually and those responsible will become known. Just as with the Occupation the truth will come
out eventually. Let us hope that justice is done before it is too late for those affected.

Anonymous(6) said...

"It's a shame nobody is commenting on who is responsible for unearthing those of us who kept it closed up and were forced to release the demons to satisfy their politcal agenda.
Spinless eh?"

Jerseys welfare policies are flawed and continue a long tradition of the "Jersey way" being preferred over U.K. practices.

If the Greenfields and HDLG abuses had not come to light they would have been repeated for decades in various forms.

Playing down the abusive practices for "the good of the island" allowed the abusers free rein and immunity.

So please, no more of this "you're only hurting people" bullshit.

Changes are happening as we speak and children in the States care are safer than they have been for decades thanks to Stuart and Lenny Harpers efforts.

Anonymous(7) said...

100,000 achieveat 21 43

Anonymous(8) said...

In the end honesty is the best policy

Senator Stuart Syvret said...

100,000 + of you.

What can I say?

Thanks, really, for taking an interest.

Supporting the child protection campaign.

And providing what has frequently been a great source of support to me - during what has, at times, been a cold, hard battle.

I missed the actual counter click - but hell - I was watching Miles Davis on YouTube - playing the song 'Time After Time' - live.

Just sublime. Check it out.

Thanks

Stuart

Anonymous(3) said...

Yes you are right - confronting the past CAN work for some people, however the professional advice is that it's often not a good idea.

The point I was making is that this has FORCED the issue for many people (as evidence by your poster from France) and THAT IS very damaging and is destroying families who were coping.

Yes, facing it is necessary for some - the CHOICE would be nice.

Anonymous (9) said...

"The point I was making is that this has FORCED the issue for many people (as evidence by your poster from France) and THAT IS very damaging and is destroying families who were coping.

Yes, facing it is necessary for some - the CHOICE would be nice."

Do you HONESTLY believe keeping a lid on things would be better?

By confronting the abusive behaviours and institutions children now and in the future are being saved from mistreatment and suffering.
No one else will need to have to make a choice because the abusers will be stopped.

Or maybe murders shouldn't be investigated so the bereaved families wont be distressed.

Anonymous (3) said...

Unearthing the past

I was not suggesting that the issues should not gave been unearthed. I was saying the manner in which it was done, with all the attendant politics and media spin, has made it impossible for people who wanted to keep the past where it belonged for them.

Anonymous (10) said...

Sadist abusers (they are sadist however you look at it) prefer their crimes (and they are crimes) to be kept secret and will seek out environments and others that allow them to practice their sadist tendancies.

They must be brought to account for their crimes against humanity otherwise it is sending out the message that any and every depraved act goes - as long as you have the right people protecting you.

Many people simply do not want to beleive that these acts of depravity occur and will simply bury their heads in the sand rather than to have to accept the full and horrific implications that some 'humans' are beyond comprehension.

Anonymous (11) said...

"people who wanted to keep the past where it belonged for them."

If you try to deny or ignore painful abuse in the past it has a funny habit of coming back and biting you in the bottom when you least expect it! It could be the sight of a building,the smell of a type of floor polish, the sound of footsteps in a corridor or the feeling of being locked in a room.

Flashbacks can be visual, auditory or sensory and for some they don't go away until you have told your story to someome who really listens to you and affirms your pain.

My life in France said

I’d just like to thank all of you that have written so many kind words to me.

You have all shown through your kindness to me, that the world could be such a very different place if we just all reached out to those in need.

Yesterday, when I posted `my life in France’ I was feeling pretty low. Today, although still very much alone, sad, and coming to terms with what looks like the inevitable as far as my personal life is concerned. I still see a glimmer of light in the darkness that surrounds me.

This light is kindled, by those of you who have held out a hand of friendship, kindness and understanding to a complete stranger. And what’s more, a stranger in need.

Yesterday, after posting on Stuarts blog, I received a telephone call from a very understanding lady at the States of Jersey Police. Who, offered all of the help that is at the disposal of the SoJP.

Similarly, Stuart has been in contact, again offering me all the support and help that he can muster.

If I had not realized it before, I certainly do now. That is, through the kindness and fellowship that you all have shown to me, the world could be such a very different world if we just held out our hands to someone in need.

Like many of you, I have young children, two beautiful little girls. I, am in my early fifties and, at times am very frightened for them.

I’m frightened because of the world we live in, a world which has made men like Stuart, Lenny and many others who contribute to this blog, indispensable in the fight against the darkness which is waiting around every unlit corner for the unwary innocents to step into.

I know now, that perhaps there is more hope for us then I had realized before. Yesterday proved to me that total strangers, regardless of race, religion or gender can embrace a fellow human being who is in need.

It demonstrates not only regarding my fears for my own little girls, but with regard to all of those who are in pain and all of those who have experiences abuse and injustice, that there are some very extraordinary human beings who without being asked will take your hand in kindness.

Thank you for being there.

*****************************************************************************

"If I had not realized it before, I certainly do now. That is, through the kindness and fellowship that you all have shown to me, the world could be such a very different world if we just held out our hands to someone in need."

This sums up very well, I think, the power for good that this kind of online fellowship can be. My thought go out to `My Life in France' and I very much hope he is beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel, through the support that has been forthcoming as a result of his contact with the blog.

New Year Message to Senator Stuart Syvret

Happy New Year Stuart

I have been following your blog closely and have posted occasional comments since the middle of last year.

I discovered your blog in a roundabout way. Although I never knew him, I came to know a little about the late Dereck Carter - former Tourism Minister on Jersey - through contacts in France, and was impressed by what I heard about his reforming and principled approach to politics. Then I discovered the tribute to Dereck on `Is This Jersey?', written by Greg Matthews, in which he described Dereck as having "more principle in his little finger than the whole gang of talentless amateurs and lowlife gangsters who ran the States when he was active and still run the States now".

This further intrigued me, and as the Haut de la Garenne investigation became an ever higher profile story in the national media, I began to wonder whether in some way there might be a connection between an apparent history of child abuse on the island stretching back decades and a tradition of government by a largely unaccountable and possibly corrupt establishment clique. Having made that tentative connection, it was not long before I found the blog of Senator Stuart Syvret!

Not only was I astonished by the forthrightness of what I read, and by your honesty, persistence, compassion, courage and high principles, I also soon realised there were other powerful voices such as Voiceforchildren, Linda Corby and Simon Bellwood, using blogs as a means of political expression in Jersey. I have searched for a similar online community in my native Scotland, and despite it being a time of great constitutional and financial uncertainty here, have found nothing similar. So I concluded that there must be something special - indeed unique - about the situation in Jersey, and over the months you have obliged by demonstrating in forensic detail just what this is.

As an outsider, some would say I have no business even taking a distant interest in the private tribulations of a small rich island. Here is my justification: you are absolutely right to say that highly paid public servants with a responsibility for child protection must discharge their duties, but in normal modern democracies this duty of care is the explicit responsibility of EVERY adult. As global citizens this translates to a responsibility to notice abuses of power wherever they may occur and to do whatever we can to support the cause of justice.

Of course this is not always easy, as this beautiful song by Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs eloquently illustrates; and it is the people of Jersey who will be called upon to make the hard decisions, not the armchair altruists like me!

Anyway all the best for 2009, starting with your date with Jack Straw, and know that support for your tireless efforts and for the cause of the Jersey victims extends to many places well beyond your island's shores.

Uruisg

Jersey Again - Watch this Space

So why would the Jersey establishment be hell-bent on obstructing investigation into Haut de la Garenne? The recent evidence-free press conference to smear the investigatve efforts of retired cop Lenny Harper has allowed them to trumpet to a naive media, "No murders here!" I suspect this may be a prelude to "nothing very much happened here at all - and anyway it was all a long time ago" . Never mind that 200-odd people have provided statements alleging abuse.

Chief Minister Frank Walker is mainly famous for claiming that those campaigning for justice were "shafting Jersey internationally". This may be taken to imply that Senator Walker is frightened that the investors on which Jersey's tax haven economy depends will be scared off by the association of the island not just with sea and sun but also sex abuse. Who's kidding who? Don't imagne that the mega-rich tax-avoiders who pour money into Jersey give a shit about the health of the island's social services, past or present. Mired in self-interest, these people will invest in any regime that can provide the right financial terms and an opportunity to cover their tracks.

No, at the risk of being labelled a conspiracy theorist, there simply must be some other reason. I have no idea right now what this might be and I was about to add, "Watch this space."

But better still, watch this space. Or if it turns out that the Jersey oligarchs are able to silence legitimate dissent, watch this one.

Jersey Bloggers near to Tipping Point in Media War?

Lately I have been closely following the situation in Jersey. By this I mean I have been reading Senator Stuart Syvret's blog, because this appears to be the ONLY reliable source of information on the island. If you don't know what I mean by the `situation in Jersey', I suggest you read the blog itself. For the purpose of the current posting, the main issues of concern are:

• the ongoing police investigation of historical child abuse at the former Haut de la Garenne children's home, and the pursuit of justice for the victims
• the prevailing culture within the political administration of the island which appears, over a period of decades, to have allowed such abuse to flourish
• the de facto one party state - labelled by some the Jersey Establishment Party (JEP) - that has obstructed the police and the pursuit of justice - the charitable interpretation being an antideluvial attitude towards preserving the international image of Jersey; or, less charitably, a sinister closing of ranks to protect cronies
• the impossibility of obtaining justice within such a system, where the judiciary and the establishment politicians appear to be less than separate parts of the same oligarchy
• the formal declaration by the police of a senior education official as a suspect under investigation for child abuse, and the failure of the authorities to suspend the individual pending the outcome of enquiries, pleading a duty of care towards employees that overrides all other perceived duties
  

Now that is just to set the scene. But this posting is not just about Jersey - it is also about the growing practice of blogging.

You might imagine that all of the above points would have found their way into the local media. Well, actually no. You see the establishment has effective control of the media too. Are you thinking Soviet Union now? - it may sound incredible, but that's not too far from the mark. The local BBC channel actively stifles political debate that might challenge the status quo, and the only local paper, the Jersey Evening Press ( = JEP, get the connection?) even publishes made-up letters in support of the oligarchy. This may sound just too far fetched - but read Stuart's blog.

It is no surprise then that Jersey has a flourishing blogging community (like China I imagine). Many islanders have ditched the conventional media outlets in disgust and have opted to get their news direct from Stuart. The sense of community through a common cause is palpable, and, with Stuart's blog having now attracted over 70,000 discrete readers, a tipping point may be close. Newspapers are running scared of the internet - and not just in Jersey. Advertising revenue, their life-blood, is vanishing as internet-savvy companies learn to exploit the online market. And when the point is reached where most citizens choose to source their news from blogs both the raison d'etre and the viability of the traditional media may disappear forever. And, in Jersey at least, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this point is rapidly approaching.

I take absolutely no pleasure in this prediction. I am for the most part a staunch admirer of the quality of journalism to be found in the `serious' media in the UK. But "the times they are a'changing" and the traditional media will be forced either to adapt and find a way of living in harmony with the online dissemination of news - or perish. Efforts to manipulate or massage the news to suit a particular political agenda will be more easily and rapidly exposed as more people realise they can locate primary sources of news for themselves on the internet. Thus truth will out.

As ever with the internet, the freedom it brings is a double-edged sword. The technology itself is a morally neutral medium that can just as easily be used as a vehicle for obfuscation and disinformation as it can to reveal the truth. As citizens of the online news community we need well-tuned antennae. We need a `moral compass' that will allow us to recognise and home in on those sources charcterised by honesty, integrity, compassion and a commitment to truth, justice and clear ethical principles.

Where better to test your moral compass than by logging in to Stuart Syvret's blog. You will find all these qualities in spades. He really is setting a standard for committed and principled investigative blogging which should have the emasculated media in Jersey and beyond truly fearful for their future.

Do Directors of Education Abuse Children?

Suppose for just a minute - and I know it is going to sound far-fetched - that a Director of Education and his predecessor had been publicly accused by a local politician of systematic physical abuse of children. And that the allegations were under investigation by the police. What would you expect to happen?

You might expect the employee concerned to be suspended - without prejudice - while the investigation was conducted. You might expect the media - local and national - to afford the matter some attention: it would after all be an extraordinary story.

You might expect all this - unless of course it happened in Jersey.

For such an allegation has this week been made in Jersey - so far to absolutely deafening media silence. And not the slightest hint of anyone being suspended.

I make no apology for referring once again to Jersey Senator Stuart Syvret's blog. You need only know that McKeon is the recently retired Director before I let Stuart take up the story:

In the early 1980s McKeon was the Head of the then child secure unit, known as Les Chennes; this place having gradually taken over child imprisonment responsibilities from the infamous Haute de la Garenne, which closed in 1986.

While McKeon was the Head of the “school” – as it was euphemistically known – his Deputy Head was Mario Lundy.

McKeon, miraculously, worked his way up the Education hierarchy to become its Chief Officer – a position from which he retired only last Christmas. And – wouldn’t you know it – his side-kick, Lundy, followed the same career arc – and replaced McKeon as the Chief Officer of Education at the beginning of this year.

Tom McKeon and Mario Lundy were both in the habit of routinely committing savage, violent assaults on the male children in their care.

And so ‘normalised’ were both men to this criminal conduct they thought nothing of blithely carrying out such assaults on an open basis – in front of other witnesses – children and adults.

And we are not talking about the occasional slap on the wrist or tweaked ear.

McKeon was known as “The Pinball Wizard” because such was his calculated propensity for violent child abuse – he even had the furniture in his office at Les Chennes arranged in such a way as to afford a nice, clear run-up to the walls of the room.

He was then able to grab children by the arm, take a run-up – and swing them –wrestling-fashion – so that the child would smash savagely against the walls.

Bouncing children off the walls and furniture in this way gave rise to the nick-name “The Pinball Wizard”.

Now that's just a flavour of the astonishing allegations. I urge you to visit the blog and read the whole posting and the comments it has attracted.

So where on earth is the mainstream media coverage? Stuart Syvret's blog has attracted 60,000 readers. This is more than the circulation of "The Scotsman". So don't tell me this has somehow escaped the radar of the media.

Maybe they just don't care - Jersey after all is an island with half the population of Dumfries and Galloway, which sits nearer to France than England and enjoys a quaint constitutional status that affords it the same nationhood as Scotland at the Commonwealth Games, along with its vaguely suspicious `offshore' tax status. And sadly it is far from unique in having experienced institutionalised child abuse.

Or maybe they are just too lazy: there is a lot of reading in Senator Syvret's blog. Or maybe too cowardly - fearing litigation perhaps if names are aired. Stuart Syvret has no such fear, and he has explained clearly why. His blog is written in forensic detail and with passion. But it is the regular comments his blog attracts from some of Jersey's abuse victims that ultimately give the greatest credence to what he is trying to do. Beyond question they deserve justice. The UK Government (i.e. Justice Minister Jack Straw) has shown a marked reluctance to intervene to ensure justice, despite their constitutional entitlement - I should say obligation- to do so.

If there are any real investigative journalists with a social conscience still out there, the story is waiting. To capture the current public preoccupation, their starting place could be Jersey's dependence on international banking at this time of crisis, and a few short steps would lead them to the serious failings in the governance of the island and the devastating effect this is having on the quest for justice for the victims of abuse.