A FIERCE climate of disbelief surrounds allegations of paedophile sex rings, abuse and perhaps even murder, according to a report in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday.
And reading the disturbing account of a dark world few of us wish to contemplate even in our worst nightmares, let alone believe in the cold light of day, it is clear what is meant.
In a three-page article titled ‘I have known about Jersey paedophiles for 15 years … I had so not wanted to be right’ reporter Eileen Fairweather links abuse allegations, torture and dead bodies with characters of evil she has traced from Jersey to Islington, Cambridgeshire and on to Guernsey.
And, in a moment, what began as a Jersey problem to be viewed with growing horror via satellite link, has become a ‘Channel Island issue’ in a national newspaper.
Ms Fairbrother’s credentials to lay such damning allegations at our doorstep are based on a series of investigations in London which culminated, she writes, in government inquiries and two British Press awards. These investigations brought to her attention a group of paedophiles seemingly organising sailing trips to Guernsey and presenting UK children for abuse here.
Without further confirmation, it is important to treat these allegations as just that. Equally, as has been demonstrated all too graphically in Jersey, it is important not to embrace too strongly ‘a climate of disbelief’.
Yet there seems an inevitability now that this is the beginning of a broadening of the focus of the national media beyond Jersey’s shores a week after a skull was found at Haut de la Garenne. More articles and further allegations will follow, some of which may involve our Bailiwick.
In this instance, the men named and accused are both dead. Yet, with some of the tales of abuse in Jersey said to be based on very recent events there may be allegations to come which involve the living.
Dark days for us all
A FIERCE climate of disbelief surrounds allegations of paedophile sex rings, abuse and perhaps even murder, according to a report in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday.
And reading the disturbing account of a dark world few of us wish to contemplate even in our worst nightmares, let alone believe in the cold light of day, it is clear what is meant.
In a three-page article titled ‘I have known about Jersey paedophiles for 15 years … I had so not wanted to be right’ reporter Eileen Fairweather links abuse allegations, torture and dead bodies with characters of evil she has traced from Jersey to Islington, Cambridgeshire and on to Guernsey.
And, in a moment, what began as a Jersey problem to be viewed with growing horror via satellite link, has become a ‘Channel Island issue’ in a national newspaper.
Ms Fairbrother’s credentials to lay such damning allegations at our doorstep are based on a series of investigations in London which culminated, she writes, in government inquiries and two British Press awards. These investigations brought to her attention a group of paedophiles seemingly organising sailing trips to Guernsey and presenting UK children for abuse here.
Without further confirmation, it is important to treat these allegations as just that. Equally, as has been demonstrated all too graphically in Jersey, it is important not to embrace too strongly ‘a climate of disbelief’.
Yet there seems an inevitability now that this is the beginning of a broadening of the focus of the national media beyond Jersey’s shores a week after a skull was found at Haut de la Garenne. More articles and further allegations will follow, some of which may involve our Bailiwick.
In this instance, the men named and accused are both dead. Yet, with some of the tales of abuse in Jersey said to be based on very recent events there may be allegations to come which involve the living.
These are dark days for all the Channel Islands.
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