AS OFFICERS continue to search for further remains of children in Jersey’s Haut de la Garenne, the scene is set for this to become what the national media are already suggesting will be Britain’s worst case of systematic abuse.
There is something truly appalling about the way this is unfolding and it was clear from the response to the first appeal for victims to come forward that something extraordinary had occurred.
In all, 140 separate individuals have made contact with specialist NSPCC staff to tell their story. From that it is now clear that far from being a care home, Haut de la Garenne was a nightmare place of violence, brutality and sexual abuse towards the most vulnerable.
Then, as the evidence was sifted, something more sinister was revealed: the youngsters who simply went missing.
Whether it is just one – although that would be horrific enough – reported by a number of the 140 victims or several separate disappearances should be resolved when officers have finished with the six other sites identified by sniffer dog.
And more than one body leaves Jersey in an exceptionally difficult position.
Sacked Health minister Senator Stuart Syvret was on national radio yesterday talking about the ‘culturally appalling attitude to vulnerable children’ and of a cover-up at the very top. Although denied by the island’s chief minister, people will wonder how such systemic abuse could have occurred over such a long period without someone knowing.
And if children were able to disappear without comment, then there was unbelievable laxity in the system or, people will conclude, the vanishings and the brutality were being hushed up.
This puts our sister island into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons but it also highlights a terrible truth. Without vigilance, extreme child abuse can become culturally endemic and, apparently, remain impossible to detect.
What the victims need now is swift justice and a rigorous disclosure of what went wrong and why so many of them had had to suffer in silence for so many years.
4 Article Comments
The world is sadly full of these perverts,and they are everywhere.When caught they should be punished without mercy.If there has been a “coverup”then those responsible should be put behind bars.
what makes this so appaling is the atutude of the athorities and in pareticular the person representing the jersey on radio 4 yesterday,there is clear evidence of a cover up, I wil never set foot on Jersey again , lo, these perverts should have been dealt with. surly some one some where missed these children ? i pray not to many poor children wil be found buried in this hell , one is more than enough. shame on you jersey
this is really scary as i lived in swissville childrens home in Guernsey between 1978 and 1980, and all this with the Jersey findings is bring back bad memories of incidences that happened to me and i wonder if it took place her in Guernsey?
and i feel for everyone that lived in the childrens home in Jersey and what they were subjected to.
It is incidents like this that make me glad I left Britain when I did. Here on the other side of the big pond, where we have the “compensation culture” so widely criticized in the British press, the victims would be entitled to significant financial redress. In addition to criminal punishment, lawsuits that financially hit the perpetrating adults and the taxpayers who would otherwise not care are what brings about change.