THE TIMES used its second most prominent news page yesterday to carry further police criticism of the difficulties being experienced in getting suspects in the Haut de la Garenne child abuse inquiry charged and before Jersey’s courts.
It was a dramatic account and relied on what was described as a furious memorandum from the officer leading the investigation that is apparently part of the evidence in support of a High Court application seeking UK involvement in the matter.
The development is a disturbing twist in what in many ways is proving to be a most unsatisfactory inquiry.
At a domestic level, criticism of any one island is inevitably regarded externally as relating to ‘the Channel Islands’. Historically, such criticism is about ‘tax haven’ status and the like. Increasingly, however, the islands are becoming synonymous with child abuse, secrecy and cover-up and it is a taint that Guernsey can well do without.
Coincidentally, this newspaper contacted Jersey Police in the week over earlier national reports about the abuse investigations being hampered. A spokesman – not the outspoken Lenny Harper who was leading the case until his retirement – was quite open. The police view is that what was described as ‘the top end of the judicial system’ is slowing matters down by sitting on crucial files and refusing to allow charges to be brought.
These are exceptionally damaging claims. For an independent police force to be openly critical of a supposedly independent prosecution service, trust and confidence must have broken down to a significant degree. Citizens have to be able to believe that wrong-doers will be brought to book without fear or favour and the hostility between investigators and prosecutors will shake that trust in the justice system to the core.
If something as serious as alleged child abuse and even homicide that has been painstakingly uncovered in the full public gaze could be hampered by the establishment, the thinking will run, what else has been covered up in the past?
Such suspicion – whether valid or not – exist here, especially among victims of child abuse.
Perhaps an independent inquiry into the whole Jersey investigation is the only way of demonstrating that the islands can do these things properly.
Jersey needs to put the record right
THE TIMES used its second most prominent news page yesterday to carry further police criticism of the difficulties being experienced in getting suspects in the Haut de la Garenne child abuse inquiry charged and before Jersey’s courts.
It was a dramatic account and relied on what was described as a furious memorandum from the officer leading the investigation that is apparently part of the evidence in support of a High Court application seeking UK involvement in the matter.
The development is a disturbing twist in what in many ways is proving to be a most unsatisfactory inquiry.
At a domestic level, criticism of any one island is inevitably regarded externally as relating to ‘the Channel Islands’. Historically, such criticism is about ‘tax haven’ status and the like. Increasingly, however, the islands are becoming synonymous with child abuse, secrecy and cover-up and it is a taint that Guernsey can well do without.
Coincidentally, this newspaper contacted Jersey Police in the week over earlier national reports about the abuse investigations being hampered. A spokesman – not the outspoken Lenny Harper who was leading the case until his retirement – was quite open. The police view is that what was described as ‘the top end of the judicial system’ is slowing matters down by sitting on crucial files and refusing to allow charges to be brought.
These are exceptionally damaging claims. For an independent police force to be openly critical of a supposedly independent prosecution service, trust and confidence must have broken down to a significant degree. Citizens have to be able to believe that wrong-doers will be brought to book without fear or favour and the hostility between investigators and prosecutors will shake that trust in the justice system to the core.
If something as serious as alleged child abuse and even homicide that has been painstakingly uncovered in the full public gaze could be hampered by the establishment, the thinking will run, what else has been covered up in the past?
Such suspicion – whether valid or not – exist here, especially among victims of child abuse.
Perhaps an independent inquiry into the whole Jersey investigation is the only way of demonstrating that the islands can do these things properly.
Article posted on 15th August, 2008 - 2.30pm