The Jersey scandal

[milliec]

Message withdrawn

yes agree its very sad and totally horrible, how can so many people be so evil when young children are involved

the news angers me going on and on about prince harry when these horrible revelations are happeneing in Jersey and Shannon is still missing, the media can't resist kissing the royals ar**s when there are REAL stories in the news

it is all very disturbing. And all very obscure as it happened so long ago. I hope they get to the bottom of it. I was reading the Sunday Times article about it at the weekend and nothing really added up, it seems that many people who used to be children at the home had spoken about it in the past and their claims had been dismissed. then it talked about a paedophile in Jersey who was arrested in the 60's but didnt make a link, why they referred to him i don't know. All very strange and awful.

i mean in the sixties...

I just heard an interview with someone who worked there.

I feel quite ill thinking about it. I wonder if it was covered up so Jersey could promote itself as a family resort?

I certainly will not be going there to holiday again - I know it's shutting the stable door after the horse has well and truly been tortured/killed/illegally buried but I can't in all conscience put money into that economy. If justice is done.....

Can't stand anymore stories like this.

Wonder what's going to happen to the Youth Hostel - can't imagine wanting to go there after this....

I am most shocked by the huge number of children involved, and the fact it still stayed covered up for so long. How utterly powerless those children must have been, even into adulthood....

Yes, I thought that was interesting too Dittany.
Presumably also when this kind of thing comes out into the open, as well as the real victims there will be people thinking they can make some compensation out of it, which will undermine the real cases.

No Dittany, my point is that if there are fake ones in among the real ones it make it harder for the real ones.

Several reports have said it was suspected that systematic abuse had been going on there for years but the authorities hushed it up.

A small place like that & a few corrupt high-ups is probably enough to make sure that only like-minded people were employed at the place. If the children were orphans who was there, to raise the alarm,but the few who "escaped" or who survived as traumatised adults?

The current deputy chief of police Lenny Harper has vowed to clear itup before he retires in the summer. I suspect he is now rattling a lot of cages because he doesn't have to worry about his future career & can speak out.

people rowing for the shore methinks

I feel sick, this is horrible, apparently, two children who went there are in goal for commiting horrible crimes themselves!

It makes me so sad and horrified to think of it - but it also makes me think it wasn't an isolated case. As recently as the 80s, it was considered OK to hit children, sometimes brutally, and they were rarely listened to, especially children in care, regarding claims of abuse. Though it probably still goes on to an extent, I think we have grown up a lot in this country and now we do realise violence doesn't do anything for children and we understand the risks of abuse, and children are more likely to be listened to and that's a good thing.

I think what's odd is what short memories we have when the news reporters etc express shock at people recalling being beaten and bullied by the staff. That was pretty normal in the 60s and 70s. It happened in normal schools, not to mention millions of family homes. I do think we're getting somewhere and attitudes have changed so much. So I try to see the horror and shock of all this as a good thing. And I think it's good for anyone unreconstructed and stupid enough to say things like "bring back flogging and hanging" that that is where that attitude leads.

I read an interesting book about the Occupation of the Channel Islands in WW2 and it drew attention to the fact that even now, all these years after the event,the effects are still being felt in Channel Island Society.Apparently many babies born of German fathers and island girls ended up in care,and the cycle was repeated with their own children.

Yes Silent I have read that in an article too.

Children who met in the home & married had such dreadful dysfunctional lives that their OWN children were taken away from them & put into the very hell-hole that caused their parents problems!

"I wonder if it was covered up so Jersey could promote itself as a family resort?" I suspect that, along with a viscious protective network of self-interest amongst the perpertrators, that this sort of 'good news' marketing created a second -tier ring of insulation form too much investigation. Chillingly, even the senior CoE cleeric who conducted the service when the child's skull was found asked the congregation to pray against 'too much inquistitiveness' and media cover.

"One of the thing the reporter in the MoS said (she's been following this story for 15 years now) was that police aren't keen to pursue cases of child abuse because the victims are so fragile and often have poor memories of what happened " yes, that may be an explanation - but then you would think that they would take extra care to secure hard evidence - not dispose of bones before they had been identified! Apparantly the bones which were found some years ago were dismissed as animal remains, even though some were not even identified - and destroyed.

"I read an interesting book about the Occupation of the Channel Islands in WW2" The building itself was used as a base, wasn't it?

This all started now because the police were investigating a very high level of abuse cases within the Sea Scouts - the whole thing does smack of a very disturbed and damaged community.

You think that a small closed community will offere familiarity and protection, neighbourliness and a sense of community care and cohesion. But when it goes wrong, it seems to go sinister very quickly. Look at that Pitcairn situation.

there was a fairly recent scandal in Portugal (last 5-6yrs) about systematic abuse in state/ church run care homes mostly for orphans it went all the way up to the government and famous tv people etc.

a lot of people with a lot to loose trying to cover it up all very sad but not unheard. this is particularly bad in small closed communities

But it is what has happened in other cases Dittany - people have come forward who weren't even in the homes under investigation at time when alleged offenses were committed and then this gets used to discredit the whole case. There has been concern in the past about police 'trawling' for victims and whether this has led to miscarriages of justice.
You are probably right that in this case the (horribly) large number of victims will make the case rather more robust.

Apropos of this discussion, I did read that the records of WW2 relating to the Channel Islands were to remain sealed for longer than would be the norm (100 years instead of 50) since many of the aiders/abettors of the Occupation, were still alive (if not well) and either they or their families might face reprisals from the families of those not fortunate enough to survive the war .

Yes Bookworm,the Occupation has cast a long shadow.However I think it would have been hard not to have 'collaborated' to some degree given the size of the islands themselves and the difficulties the islanders faced.Obviously the culture of secrecy has long outlived the war.

Jersey is horrifying. Especially as the police say the abusers are still trying to threaten witnesses.

But on the wider point of trawling for victims, someone I know who was called as a witness into one case of abuse at a children's home said the police did indeed try to persuade people to corroborate the allegations by telling them they would be entitled to compensation. Many of the people who had been through that home were not exactly well off. And some were very damaged - as a result of the stuff that got them into care in the first place, let alone anything that might have happened afterwards. You can see how people might be tempted to embellish their accounts.

Clearly what is happening in Jersey is a long, long way from that, though.