This Is Guernsey

Senator Stuart Syvret faces the global media in Jersey’s Royal Square. (Picture by Tony Pike, 0541931)

CHILD abuse cover-ups have probably taken place in Guernsey, according to whistleblowing Jersey politician Stuart Syvret.

The claim came just hours after Senator Syvret, who was sacked from his post as health minister last autumn, publicly announced the names of individuals he believed had been involved in a Jersey abuse cover-up.

And it coincided with Guernsey’s Health and Social Services Department announcing that it, Education and Guernsey police were liaising, with the investigation team in Jersey to ensure any concerns about Guernsey children were responded to.

HSSD also acknowledged that a number of local youngsters would have been placed in Jersey from the 1950s to the early 1980s.

If they had been adopted by Jersey families in that time and the adoption broke down, the children would have entered that island’s social services system.

It is not known if any had.

Senator Syvret said he was not aware of any specific hiding of scandals in Guernsey, but he was ‘almost certain’ that they had occurred.

‘Sadly, I would have to say probably, yes, child abuse cover-ups have happened in Guernsey,’ said Senator Syvret.

‘Both islands have the same structure, meaning they have the same flaws. In both situations, only having one level of government is evidently a risk.’

But Guernsey’s Education minister Martin Ozanne said there had been no cause for concern on his watch.

‘I’m horrified by what I hear has happened in Jersey,’ he said.

‘How can that possibly have happened in such a small community? All I can say is that nobody has ever informed me of any incidents of abuse over my whole time in the Education Department. As a parent and a politician, I would be horrified and call for an immediate investigation.’

And the minister added that throughout his appointment, all staff involved with the department had undergone vigorous police checks.

In another development, a man who claimed he was raped and abused repeatedly while at Haut de la Garenne went public.

Peter Hannaford, 59 spent the first 12 years of his life as an orphan at the former children’s home and says he was attacked and abused from his earliest recollection.

Mr Hannaford, a Transport and General Workers’ Union officer, spoke publicly for the first time about his experience at the home.

‘The building has got to be erased from the ground and erased from people’s memories,’ he said.

Mr Hannaford is one of the former residents who has spoken to Jersey Police investigating abuse said to date back to the 1960s.

Senator Syvret said: ‘It is important to say that all communities get dangerous maniacs from time to time – paedophiles, rapists and murderers and so on – but in most places the perpetrators are swiftly dealt with. But that these things have taken place and been undetected for so long is clearly a huge concern.

‘In small communities, evidently things go undetected.’

He said that the problem boiled down to the infrastructure across the Bailiwicks.

‘What is needed in both islands is some form of regulation – we have to have a completely independent prosecution service which is completely uninvolved in politics.’

Senator Syvret added that while he was confident the policy of inter-island adoption had its benefits, it also carried with it a grave risk.

‘A three-year-old child could be abused, for example, and then sent off-island, where it was less likely the abuse would come to light,’ he said.

And he refuted claims made earlier on BBC’s Newsnight by Jersey’s chief minister Frank Walker that his claims were damaging Jersey’s reputation.

‘The island’s reputation should not even come into it,’ he said.

‘It is absolutely better that these things are dealt with at the time, not years later, as has sadly happened here.’

It also emerged yesterday that ‘the Beast of Jersey’, Edward Paisnel, a paedophile who created fear and alarm for 10 years by kidnapping children and molesting them while wearing spike-studded epaulets and a horror mask, frequented Haut de la Garenne during the 1960s.

That former home, where the search for more child remains has been halted until it has been deemed structurally sound, is now being treated as a homicide site.