Jersey investigation into child abuse

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Jersey care home probe into dungeon four

Postby professorpan » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:06 am

EXCLUSIVE New horror in torture home

Kate Mansey In St Martin, Jersey Kate.Mansey@Sundaymirror.Co.Uk 2/03/2008

Detectives searching the Jersey house of horrors were last night preparing to break into a FOURTH secret torture chamber.

They have been directed to a dungeon beneath the mansion's courtyard by new witnesses who remember as children being taken by staff "through a secret passage" to a dark room.

Sniffer dogs trained to find bodies, have also uncovered a possible "hot spot" at a manhole above the area.

Police have already unearthed three cellars under a trap door in the former children's home, Haut de la Garenne.

Statements from victims and whistleblowers taken over the last 48 hours include details of how staff would invite friends from outside to come for "abuse parties" where children were drugged, raped and beaten. And horrified locals told how they had seen staff dragging children across the fields late at night. Some were never seen again.

Deputy chief police officer for Jersey Lenny Harper said: "There are rumours and anecdotal evidence of bodies being buried in the grounds and we've been told that remains were buried in the grass banks nearby.
"People who stayed at the home told us they would hear screaming in the night and when they woke, a person had disappeared. The staff would always say they had just run away. We cannot ignore this."

Yesterday forensic archaeologists were digging for evidence in fields the size of a football pitch around the home. As well as discovering a bath and a pair of shackles in the cellars, scientists found strips of fabric from children's clothing which have been sent for analysis.

On Friday a trap door to one of the cellars was uncovered after victims told of being locked underground for days at a time.

A special homicide review team arrived on the island yesterday to oversee the dig and 12 more detectives from the UK - including six private investigators - will be flown in.

Officers have a hit-list of 40 suspects and last night Lenny Harper warned: "We know who you are and we know you are waiting for us to knock on your door. You can't do those sorts of things to children and forget about it."

Meanwhile Tony and Morag Jordan, who ran the home from 1971 to 1984 and now live in Angus, Scotland, claim they knew nothing about children being abused.

Gordon Wateridge, 76, was last year charged with indecently assaulting three girls under the age of 16 between 1969 and 1973. He is due in court again in March.

But some of the perpetrators are dead - including the infamous Beast of Jersey, paedophile Edward Paisnel. Paisnel visited the home as Father Christmas but was later jailed for raping and abusing more than 25 boys and girls. He died in prison.

Meanwhile the island was rocked when secret documents emerged showing an astonishing catalogue of paedophilia right across Jersey as a number of schools, foster homes and other children's homes came under the spotlight.

So far more than 160 victims of the nightmare regime at Haut de la Garenne have now come forward to tell sickening tales of how staff abused them.

Police chief Lenny Harper said: "We know that friends were invited to the home to take part in the abuse.

"The abuse was systematic, endemic and... brutal."
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Postby Sepka » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:59 am

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770


'I have known about Jersey paedophiles for 15 years,' says award-winning journalist

The award-winning journalist who exposed terrible abuse in Islington children's homes now reveals horrifying links to sinister discoveries at Jersey's Haut de la Garenne.

I met the frightened policeman at an isolated country restaurant, many miles from his home and station. Detective Constable Peter Cook had finally despaired, and decided to blow the whistle to a reporter.

He was risking his career, so made me scribble my notes into a tiny pad beneath the tablecloth.

He had uncovered a vicious child sex ring, with victims in both Britain and the Channel Islands, and he wanted me to get his information to police abuse specialists in London.

Incredibly, he claimed that his superiors had barred him from alerting them.

He feared a cover-up: many ring members were powerful and wealthy. But I did not think him paranoid: I specialised in exposing child abuse scandals and knew, from separate sources, of men apparently linked to this ring.

They included an aristocrat, clerics and a social services chief. Their friends included senior police officers.

Repeatedly, inquiries by junior detectives were closed down, so I, a journalist, was asked to convey confidential information from one police officer to others. It seemed surreal.

I duly met trusted contacts at the National Criminal-Intelligence Squad. That was more than 12 years ago, and little happened - until now.

Last weekend, a child's remains were found at a former children's home on Jersey amid claims of a paedophile ring.

More than 200 children who lived at Haut de la Garenne have described horrific sexual and physical torture dating back to the Sixties.

When I heard the news, my eyes filled with tears. I felt heartbroken, not least at my own powerlessness. I have known for more than 15 years about Channel Islands paedophiles victimising children in the British care system.

I was relieved that the truth was finally emerging. But I felt devastated. Children had probably been murdered. I had so not wanted to be right.

I stood outside the forbidding Victorian building of Haut de la Garenne this week and watched grim-faced police in blue plastic forensic suits hunt its bricked-up secret basements for children's bones.

Outside, a large cross commemorates the 35 former residents who died fighting for their country: "Their names liveth forever." Oh yes?

What are the names of the children whose bodies may now be dug up - and why did no one miss and search for them earlier? Jersey's residents and political class must ask these questions.

Disturbing allegations about the murder of children in care have characterised other scandals I investigated in Britain, but today I can reveal for the first time the links between the abuse I uncovered at care homes in Islington, North London, and the horrifying discoveries on Jersey.

I have never before written that 14-year-old Jason Swift, killed in 1985 by a paedophile gang, is believed to have lived in Islington council's Conewood Street home.

Two sources claimed this when I investigated Islington's 12 care homes for The Mail on Sunday's sister paper, the London Evening Standard, in the early Nineties.

But hundreds of children's files mysteriously disappeared in Islington and, without documentation, this was not evidence enough.

We did, however, prove that every home included staff who were paedophiles, child pornographers or pimps. Concerned police secretly confirmed that several Islington workers were believed "networkers", major operators in the supply of children for abuse and pornography.

Some of these were from the Channel Islands or regularly took Islington children there on unofficial visits. In light of the grisly discoveries at Haut de la Garenne, the link now seems significant, but at the time we were so overwhelmed by abuse allegations nearer home that this connection never emerged.

What we did report prompted the sort of vehement official denials that have come to characterise child abuse claims. Margaret Hodge, then council leader, denounced us as Right-wing "gutter journalists" who supposedly bribed children to lie.

Our findings were eventually vindicated by Government-ordered inquiries, and two British Press Awards. Yet I knew we had only scraped the surface of Islington's corruption.

Now Jersey police under deputy chief Lenny Harper - a 'new broom' outsider - have been secretly investigating a paedophile ring linked to the island's care homes for months, I have been struck by common factors with the British abuse scandals: innocent-sounding sailing trips, where children can be isolated and abused, away from prying eyes, then delivered to other abusers; the familiar smearing of whistle-blowers; and the suppression of damning reports.

Jersey social worker Simon Bellwood was sacked early last year after speaking out, and popular health minister Stuart Syvret, 42, was fired in November after publicising the suppressed Sharp Report into abuse allegations.

"The smears on me are water off a duck's back," this brave man told me yesterday in a St Helier cafe. But his hands shook.

I have never assumed that the officials, politicians and police who cover up abuse scandals are all paedophiles, nor does Syvret.

"They just want a quiet life and their competency unquestioned. I'm angrier with them than the abusers, and want several prosecuted for obstructing the course of justice. The police are considering charges," he added.

Traditionally, police fear paedophile ring inquiries as expensive and unproductive. Traumatised witnesses can be hazy and collapse under cross-examination.

Convictions are rare. Police therefore raid suspected abusers for paedophile pornography, which more easily yields convictions.

Well - in theory. In June 1991, police in Cambridgeshire raided the home of Neil Hocquart who abused children in Britain and Guernsey and, with a social worker from Jersey, supplied child pornography for a huge sex ring.

It should have been a major breakthrough. But, as DC Cook told me, it went horribly wrong.

A handful of child sex-ring victims become "recruiters". They are not beaten but rewarded with gifts,

money and 'love'. In return, their job is to procure other victims. Such a man, my whistle-blower believed, was Neil Frederick Hocquart.

Hocquart, original surname Foster, was abused while in care in Norfolk and was eventually 'befriended' by an older man, merchant seaman Captain H. Hocquart of Vale, in Guernsey, whose surname he adopted.

Captain Hocquart was not the only Channel Islands man with an interest in children in care. Satan worshipper Edward Paisnel, "The Beast of Jersey", was given a 30-year sentence in 1971 on 13 counts of raping girls and boys. The building contractor fostered children and played Father Christmas at Haut de la Garenne in the Sixties.

Cambridgeshire police, in a joint operation with Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad (now the Paedophile Unit), raided Neil Hocquart's Swaffham Manor home in June 1991.

They found more than 100 child-sex videos and 300 photographs of children. At nearby Ely they found his friend, Walter Clack, trying to dispose of a sick home video of a middle-aged man abusing a boy.

Who were the children in these films and photos? Police needed properly to question these men. But they never got the chance.

Hocquart secretly took an overdose of anti-depressant dothiepin and died at Addenbrooke's Hospital soon after his arrest. Was his suicide a last act of loyalty?

DC Cook told me incredulously that a senior officer broke with normal procedure and informed Clack, before he was questioned, that the other suspect was dead. Clack then blamed the dead man for everything, and escaped with a £5,000 fine - and inherited one third of Hocquart's wealth, at his bequest.

Wills featured strongly in the fortunesof the Islington and Channel Islands paedophiles. Police discovered that Neil Hocquart inherited his wealth from the Guernsey sea captain.

But Captain Hocquart possibly paid dearly for befriending orphans: he died soon after making out his will in the younger man's favour.

Scotland Yard detectives told me they found at least "two or three" wills of older men who died of apparent heart attacks shortly after leaving everything to Neil Hocquart.

The officers cheerfully called him a "murderer". These deaths were never investigated: the suspect, after all, was now also dead.

Hocquart wasn't the only person in his circle to become rich this way. A Jersey-born friend of Hocquart's, who started his childcare career on the island before becoming a key supplier of children from Islington's care homes to paedophile rings, similarly inherited a fortune.

Nicholas John Rabet was for many years deputy superintendent of Islington council's home at 114 Grosvenor Avenue.

He and a colleague, another single man later barred from social work by the Department of Health, both took children on unauthorised trips to Jersey. Allegations mounted but nothing was done.

Rabet's opportunities to obtain victims massively increased after he befriended the widow of an American oil millionaire. She died after rewriting her will in his favour.

He inherited her manor house at Cross in Hand near Heathfield, Sussex, where he opened a children's activity centre, and regularly invited children in Islington's care to stay.

Hocquart spent £13,000 on quad bikes for the centre, called The Stables, and he and Walter Clack became "volunteers" there.

Hocquart befriended one young boy and took him on a sailing trip, where there would be little risk of being spotted. Police found disturbing film from the trip of men spraying the naked child with water.

But Hocquart left the boy another third of his money, and he denied abuse when questioned.

Police also found at Hocquart's home naked photos of a boy of about ten, whom they learned was in the care of Islington social services. I shall call him Shane.

Sussex police raided Rabet's children's centre. But he had plenty of warning and, they believed, emptied it of child pornography. However officers still found a "shrine to boys", with suggestive photographs everywhere, including pictures of Shane.

They approached Shane, at his Islington children's home. He tearfully confirmed months of abuse. But their attempts to investigate further were thwarted by Islington Council.

Many professionals had, for years, expressed grave fears about Rabet, and put their concerns in writing. But Islington falsely told Sussex officers it had no file material on Rabet or his alleged victim.

Staff had in fact been ordered to find the complaints and deliver them to the office of Lyn Cusack, Islington's assistant director of social services - but they were handed over to Sussex police only when I revealed their existence.

Islington's appalling mishandling of vital records was highlighted by the independent White inquiry into the abuse in Islington children's homes, which found that "at assistant director level . . . many confidential files were destroyed by mistake, although there is no evidence of conspiracy."

During the investigation into Rabet, Islington also refused to interview any other children in care, or, scandalously, help Sussex police identify other children in Rabet's photos.

With only Shane's evidence to rely on, police decided not to prosecute.

I traced Shane. He was furious that Rabet was never prosecuted, but not surprised. "This goes right to the top," he said, "You have no idea how big this is."

He showed me photos of another victim, a young Turkish boy with a sweet shy smile whom Rabet also regularly took from the Islington home to spend weekends at his manor house.

Shane didn't know where the boy was now, he just disappeared. I was never able to find the boy, either. Many children in care are missed by no one.

I retraced Shane two years ago to tell him that justice had finally caught up with Rabet. Third World police had succeeded where Britain's finest in Cambridgeshire, Sussex, London and Jersey had failed.

Rabet fled to Thailand's notorious child sex resort of Pattaya after the White inquiry. He was arrested there in spring 2006 and charged with abusing 30 boys, some as young as six.

Thai police believed he had abused at least 300. But he was never tried: on May 12, 2006, Rabet died of an overdose at the age of 57.

Two other Jersey-born social workers, who for legal reasons I cannot name, also worked in Islington and later with young offenders.

One arranged more of those mysterious sailing trips to Guernsey, the other sent children to Rabet's centre. Both were accused of abuse.

In 1995, we reinvestigated Rabet and met DC Cook at the restaurant. He had gone through Hocquart's papers, investigated other members of the paedophile ring and met their victims. He was horrified at what he discovered.

One man, for example, married a single mother purely so he could abuse her two young sons.

"He told these poor children to keep quiet, that their mother had been lonely so long they would ruin her life if they said anything," the officer told me.

The vicar who married them knew the groom was a paedophile but did not care: he was one too, and got his victims from a British care home.

DC Cook travelled to Guernsey, which Hocquart regularly visited. There local CID officers drove him round, and he met two brothers whom Hocquart abused, then delivered them to a high-ranking, respected local man to rape.

DC Cook traced another distraught victim in England who provided invaluable information about the man, based in Wales, who copied the ring's child pornography for distribution.

This man clearly needed his door kicked in by police, as did Hocquart's other contacts in Britain and the Channel Islands. But no action was taken.

Then word came from on high to drop his inquiries. DC Cook accepted that there might be an innocent explanation - that his local force might not want the financial burden of a national investigation.

But he became deeply troubled when told not to forward his vital intelligence to specialist officers elsewhere.

Britain's new National Criminal Intelligence Squad (NCIS) had the job of disseminating intelligence on paedophiles across the country. Would I, asked the troubled officer, take his information to the squad's Paedophile Unit for him?

And so we pretended to share a meal while I secretly scribbled down the names, addresses, dates of birth and believed victims of dozens of suspects.

My diary records that I met NCIS on January 4, 1996, at 10.30am, and I also channelled the intelligence to Scotland Yard. Neither, unfortunately, had the power to make local forces take action, so I was not optimistic.

This was not the first time I had acted as a go-between. In 1994, another police officer was barred from investigating a paedophile ring, which included an Islington social worker of Channel Islands origin.

We alerted Scotland Yard. This man was, I learned, involved with five overlapping paedophile rings - but he has never been convicted.

Peter Cook has now retired and agreed to go on the record. He told me the partner of Hocquart's video producer was eventually imprisoned for abusing his own sons. "But we could have stopped so much else, so much earlier," he said.

"The news from Jersey is horrifying. I've thought of Rabet all week. The hierarchy does not like these inquiries, they're expensive and produce embarrassment, so people shove it all under the carpet, they don't want to know even when children are dying.

"There will be people now crawling out claiming they were always worried. What cowards, what bastards!"

Jersey police confirmed this week it was aware of Nick Rabet and keen to learn more about his friends. Peter Cook told me: "I will help all I can."

Michael Hames, the former head of Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad, once told me that he never doubted paedophiles were killing children in care.

But the climate of disbelief was fierce, and he asked sadly: "What police chief will dare risk his career by hiring JCBs [to search for the bodies]?"

Courageous Ulsterman Lenny Harper has. Deposed Jersey health minister Stuart Syvret told me: "My family has lived here since William the Conqueror. But if an indigenous police officer were in charge, this investigation would never have happened. Jersey is an oligarchy, where the elite look after each other."

When I flew home late last night, in time for Mother's Day, I felt utter relief.

This tiny island with its high-hedged lanes looked so pretty when the police series Bergerac was filmed here, but to me said just one thing: that there is no escape from here for a terrified child.

If witnesses who want, finally, to help these tragically un-mothered children, now is the time to speak out.

• Historical Abuse Enquiry Team: 0800 7357777
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Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:48 am

I think now that this will be another Casa Pia, I'm afraid. A big wake-up call that will be muted to the point where folk stir a bit, then just go back to sleeping.

Antiaristo, do you have anything on Lenny Harper besides him being ex-RUC? Sorry to make a request like this, but I've read your stuff for a while now, and I'm looking for some hope that justice will be done, at least in this case. Not all the RUC were bad guys, I suppose, but if the Jersey elite are as bad as they appear to be (Al Yammanah, never mind this present business) they're hardly going to choose a good one, are they?

I think Harper might be the key to whether this investigation is fully followed through or not.
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Postby hiddenite » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:17 pm

According to this he will be retiring in August

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/03/04/do0404.xml

"After six years on Jersey, he is due to retire in August and is adamant that he will keep to that timetable, regardless of the status of the Haut de la Garenne inquiry"
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Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:48 pm

Thanks hiddenite, that makes things a bit clearer, though I still don't know what to make of it really. Harper will either do his job well or leave his post, it sounds like, and he's stating in advance that his main priority is leaving his post. Not very good news for the victims - or maybe it is. I don't know. It's hard to figure Harper out.
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Postby antiaristo » Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:22 pm

.

Can't really add anything, Ahab...

UNLESS there is some connection with Paisley's resignation.

There are a couple of other bothersome points.

Margaret Hodge covered all this up when leader of Islington Council. Today she sits in Gordon Brown's Cabinet as Culture Secretary.

Just yesterday she decided to create an unrelated controversy where none existed before...


Proms 'don't promote new British values'
Last Updated: 10:01am GMT 04/03/2008

Have your say Read comments

Margaret Hodge, the culture minister will today criticise the Prom concerts, claiming they attract a narrow audience and fail to promote new British values.
(more)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main. ... rom104.xml


And what's worse, Gordon Brown (friend of the McCanns) has jumped in...

3.45 pm GMT update
PM praises Proms after minister's attack
Elizabeth Stewart and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday March 4 2008 Article history · Contact us

Downing Street has issued a swift slap-down of comments made by culture minister Margaret Hodge that the Proms fail to promote a broader participation in British culture.
(more)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008 ... arts.proms



Second, this from Seamus on Sunday:

Members of the Association of Chief Police Officers' homicide working group will soon submit a report on where the inquiry should be focused.


Policing is meant to be LOCAL in Britain. Under local democratic control.

Top of each constabulory is the Chief Constable. He is answerable to the Lord Lieutenant and local politicians.

So what happened?

They all got together and formed a "trade union". It's called the Association of Chief Police Officers ("ACPO").

ACPO now seems to make policy on policing and security matters.

Remember "Operation Kratos"? The shoot-to-kill policy for "suicide bombers"?

That was blessed by ACPO. Parliament said nothing. The Home Secretary had "no comment" on the matter.

Then Jean Charles de Menezes was murdered.

You all know the rest.

But what you may NOT know is that during the subsequent (Health and Safety!) prosecution, when evidence was given on oath, it emerged that "Operation Kratos" had never been invoked.

The whole thing had been a psy-op. A pure fabrication.

That's ACPO for you.

i doubt they will find too much.
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Postby antiaristo » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:08 pm

.

Here's some background on Margaret Hodge and the Islington connection.

The whistleblower's story

Paul Harris and Martin Bright investigate how a 12-year-old saga of child abuse and cover-ups has returned to haunt Children's Minister Margaret Hodge
Paul Harris and Martin Bright
The Observer, Sunday July 6 2003

Liz Davies remembers the moment when she realised that she had a scandal on her hands. For several months she had been talking to groups of children she suspected were being abused. Then, one day, two young boys walked into her small council office in Islington.

One of the boys looked afraid, but the other reassured him. 'It's all right,' he said 'She's not one of them.' It was those chilling words that gave Davies her first hint that much of the horrible child abuse she was uncovering was happening within the care system of Islington Council - the very organisation meant to protect the borough's most vulnerable children.

That was in April 1990. The scandal would eventually explode into the national consciousness two-and-a-half years later in a series of exposés in London's Evening Standard. They described a care system penetrated by paedophiles that had abysmally failed to care for scores of children. The council, then led by Margaret Hodge, appointed last month as the country's first Minister for Children, initially condemned thestories, for which Davies and several other social workers acted as anonymous whistleblowers.

Although police investigations dismissed claims of a paedophile ring operating in Islington, allegations of child abuse at the children's home on Hodge's watch were borne out by official inquiries. Hodge's name would forever be associated with one of Britain's most notorious child abuse scandals.

Now the scandal has reared its head again. Hodge's appointment sparked a furious campaign by the Standard and other newspapers to have her resign. She indicated this weekend that she was determined to face down the calls for her resignation: 'There is no way that I am going to walk away from this job after just two weeks. It's an incredibly challenging and important post and I want to be allowed to get on with the day job.'

Yet the clamour for her to quit was yesterday growing as, 12 years on, Davies is once again at the centre of the scandal. Shedding the cloak of anonymity, she gave her first full interview to The Observer this weekend to speak about the genesis of an affair that is now threatening the future of yet another of Tony Blair's Ministers.

Davies had been working out of the Irene Watson Neighbourhood Office for several years when she and her co-workers noticed a sudden increase in the number of children visiting them. Situated in the Hornsey area of north London, a mixed area of middle-class homes and desperately poor council estates, the office was responsible for a warren of inner-city streets. The teenagers, who had clearly slept on the streets and were involved in petty crime, would be waiting for them each morning. 'It was like a queue,' she said.

That was late in 1989. After several months, as trust between Davies and the children grew, their stories began to emerge. The picture was of terribly damaged young people, often with a history of depression and attempted suicide. Then other stories began to emerge: of sinister adults preying on children who were lured into private houses or abused in care homes, which were being used as under-age brothels. Davies and several other care workers became convinced a paedophile ring was at work in the area.

In 1990 Davies's colleague, David Cofie, raised the issue at a forum of local residents. He also took his claims direct to Hodge, who was the local ward councillor. Davies asked for more resources to tackle the problem, but Hodge turned the request down.'She only cared about the budget,' Davies said. In May, senior council officers told Davies, Cofie and others working with them to stop their investigations. 'They said it was an exaggeration. I was stunned,' Davies said.

They carried on their work. They interviewed children as individual cases and privately built up a picture of widespread abuse, which they said was being carried out by a network of abusers. They wrote 15 separate reports, but said their warnings still went unheeded, even as they uncovered appallingly serious allegations. 'There is a lot that I just can't ever speak about,' Davies said.

Certainly official reports carried out in the wake of the scandal being made public paint a picture of terrible dilapidation in Islington's care system. One report, dated February 1993 and obtained by The Observer, describes a care home of dirt, peeling plaster, mattresses for beds and no security. 'Nothing could have prepared us fully for what we encountered inside. We were devastated,' the report's authors wrote.

But, even as they uncovered stories of children being taken away by adults on weekend trips to the country or being placed in homes with suspected abusers, Davies said her team's work was ignored. It took a toll on her mental health. The final straw came when a seven-year-old boy was placed in a home run by someone she had already warned about. 'I remember seeing that child cowering in a corner inside that home,' she said 'That was enough.'

She was already having nightmares and she got a new job outside the borough by February 1992. But she could not forget the things she had witnessed. She, and others, went to the press. By the end of the year the Islington child abuse scandal was the talk of the nation.

Margaret Hodge also says she remembers things clearly. She recalls the first time Cofie came to her with his reports of a paedophile ring, including suspicions that one was operating from a house in her own Islington council ward. She says she acted in the correct manner. Cofie was the senior children's social worker in the area and someone whose opinion she respected. He said up to 14 children were being abused at the house and they should be taken into care immediately.

A memo produced by the Evening Standard last week showed that Hodge questioned providing extra resources for the investigation after the police found no evidence of abuse. 'David Cofie came to me, and of course I was petrified,' Hodge told The Observer. But the Children's Minister claims she did everything in her power to investigate the claims. 'The famous memo itself says we activated the area child protection procedures and I remember there was a sur veillance of the house for up to six months. Every child that went into that house was interviewed.'

Despite all the interviews and investigations, Hodge was told there was no evidence to substantiate the allegations. 'I know [Cofie] was upset. I know he thought he was right. But in that instance I think we did everything absolutely right. I don't think we did a thing wrong.'

Davies admits it is possible Hodge was not told the details of what she was reporting. 'I had little direct contact with her. It is possible that no one was telling her what we were telling them,' she said. If that is the case, then there are serious questions still to be asked of the role of senior staff at Islington social services and in particular John Rea Price, the Director of Social Services, who became Director of the National Children's Bureau in 1992. Despite several attempts by The Observer to contact him last week, Price has consistently refused to comment on events in Islington. He now works as an inspector of prisons for the Home Office, where he specialises in Young Offender Institutions.

Hodge knows that as council leader she must ultimately shoulder the blame for what happened in Islington in the 1980s and 90s. The final investigation into the scandal, carried out for Islington by the head of Oxfordshire Social Services, Ian White, in 1995 concluded that there was no evidence of a network of paedophiles or ritual abuse. But on the children's homes issue it was damning. 'It is apparent... that the London Borough of Islington did not in most cases undertake the standard investigative processes that should have been triggered whenever they occurred. It is possible, therefore, that some staff now not in the employment of Islington could be working in the field of social services with a clean disciplinary record and yet have serious allegations still not investigated in their history.' The council was ordered to write to all social services departments nationally to warn them to check their records for ex-Islington staff.

Most seriously, it also reported that there was a culture that tolerated relationships between care staff and teenage boys. It also blocked the investigation of people from gay or ethnic backgrounds. 'This is a recipe for disaster,' the report said. The report concluded that the ultimate responsibility for the disaster within social services lay with the council and senior officers. The buck ultimately stopped with Hodge, who had been council leader since 1982.

Hodge's successor as council leader, Derek Sawyer, who commissioned the White Report, said Hodge had done everything she could at the time. 'The reality is that Margaret and the council did take seriously allegations of abuse, always referred them to the police. Obviously there were real problems with the children's homes, and that was exposed. But there has also been a settling of old scores, which has been regrettable.'

But Davies, who now works as a lecturer at London Metropolitan University, is determined that Hodge should go. 'What are all those young people feeling now when they hear about who is the new Minister for Children?', she said.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003 ... protection


If anybody is interested she put up a piece at seven this evening.

Totally contrived tosh.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mar ... oyens.html
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Postby Stephen Morgan » Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:39 am

antiaristo wrote:Margaret Hodge covered all this up when leader of Islington Council. Today she sits in Gordon Brown's Cabinet as Culture Secretary.


She was also the first ever children's minister.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible. -- Lawrence of Arabia
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Postby blanc » Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:44 am

more on acpo anti , their spokesperson on violent crime terry grange resigned, did he not, a resignation which avoided his being investigated for a complaint that he covered up in an investigation ino child abuse involving a member of the judiciary. any news on that? additionally prior to this grange in his capacity as spokes person on violent crime turned down a request fr a review of procedures in ritual abuse cases, effectively saying that ra did not exist and that pursuit of 'historic' cases was a waste of resources
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Postby hiddenite » Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:35 pm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/05/njersey205.xml

A campaign and a protest rally

"Facebook campaign against Jersey minister
By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter
Last Updated: 3:57pm GMT 05/03/2008

The chief minister of Jersey is facing mounting pressure to resign in the wake of the island's child abuse scandal, with thousands of people signing up to protest groups on the social networking website Facebook.


Haut de la Garenne, the former children's home at the centre of a child abuse inquiry
Five separate groups calling for the removal of Senator Frank Walker have so far attracted more than 2,000 members, and Mr Walker is likely to face further criticism at a rally being held on Saturday in the island's capital, St Helier, called Time 4 Change.

Mr Walker, who has been in office since 2005, was accused last week of being more concerned with the island's image than the child abuse allegations, after he was overheard accusing a fellow senator of "trying to shaft Jersey internationally" by drawing attention to the problem.

Police have been investigating alleged child abuse at the Haut de la Garenne former children's home in Jersey for more than a year, and so far more than 160 alleged victims have come forward.

The discovery of part of a child's skull buried under a concrete floor in the Victorian building last month prompted fears that children may have been murdered during decades of alleged abuse at the home.

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Excavations will continue for at least another month as police search for more human remains.

Detectives are also investigating claims of an establishment cover-up which had until now apparently allowed the allegations of abuse to remain secret.

Among the Facebook sites dedicated to toppling Mr Walker are the Vote Frank Walker out of the States (Jersey's parliament) group, which has more than 1,000 members, and the Frank Walker Resignation Protest, with more than 500 members.

Another group called Jersey's Frank Walker Should Resign, which has more than 320 members, states: "The Chief Minister, Frank Walker, should resign for his unashamed prioritisation of Jersey's international image over the due process of the justice system for the hundreds of children and young people apparently mistreated, raped and even killed in the Island's care system over the last 70 years."

The organisers of the Time 4 Change rally hope many of the Facebook protestors will join the demonstration in St Helier's Royal Square, where a minute's silence for the victims of abuse will be followed by calls for changes in a political system which, critics say, enables scandals to be swept under the carpet.

Jersey has no political parties and its parliament has been characterised as an oligarchy run by a ruling elite drawn from the world of finance and business.

Montfort Tadier, the 28-year-old organiser of the rally, said: "There has been talk of reform in the past but it has never been taken seriously. But we want to bring an end to the culture that has allowed these events to happen."
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Postby hiddenite » Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:23 am

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2008/03/06/107519/exclusive-jersey-minister-admits-past-child-protection-failings.html

"Perchard says Jersey 'rocked to the core' over allegations

Posted: 06 March 2008 | Subscribe Online

writes Maria Ahmed


A senior Jersey social services minister has said that the island made "awful mistakes" in failing to protect children in the past.

Speaking exclusively to Community Care today, assistant health and social services minister Jim Perchard vowed to improve services in the wake of the investigation into child abuse.


Rocked to the core
Perchard (right) said the island had "been rocked to the core" by the police discovery of what is believed to be a child's remains at the former Haut de la Garenne children's home a fortnight ago.


About 200 people have made allegations of rape, flogging and physical attacks at the site as part of the police investigation.

Unware
Perchard said he was "unaware" of the allegations dating back decades, despite being "born and bred" in St Martin just two miles from Haut de la Garenne.

"I was shocked to the roots when I heard the news," he said. “I don’t know the full extent of what happened although it does appear that there was abuse. We are broken by this whole scandal, and are determined to put things right. We accept awful past mistakes have been made, and must learn from them. There is so much to do,” he told Community Care.

No cover up
He said there was "no evidence of a cover up" among current members of the Jersey establishment, and suggested allegations may have previously failed to come to light because of a "culture of ignorance." He added: "I hope such a culture does not persist today."

Perchard hit out at media coverage of the abuse case, saying it had made life “increasingly difficult” for care workers that are currently looking after about 74 children on the island.

“The coverage is damaging staff morale. It is important that their work is not undermined as they try and do their job at this tough time,” he said. "The impression created by the media is not Jersey - we are not perverted aliens."

Interim report
Perchard confirmed that tomorrow UK expert Andrew Williamson will present interim findings from his separate inquiry into children’s services on the island.

Williamson was appointed last year after child protection concerns were raised by former social services minister Stuart Syvret and UK social worker Simon Bellwood.

Greenfields secure unit
Perchard indicated that Williamson would “say something” in relation to the Greenfields secure unit on the island, where Simon Bellwood raised previous concerns over a policy of locking children in solitary confinement. He added: “I have been assured internally that we are up to speed in children’s services and that there are no immediate concerns.”

Perchard said Williamson’s remit – which predated the Haut de la Garenne findings – would not change in the light of the police investigation.

“Andrew would not be able to look at historic allegations as it would contaminate evidence being considered as part of police investigation. The police are properly resourced and we hope they will uncover the truth,” he said.

Confident in judiciary
Perchard confirmed that Jersey officials had recently met with the Ministry of Justice following recent calls for independent prosecutors to manage cases arising from the child abuse investigation. But he said he was confident that the Jersey judiciary could handle the cases.

He also reacted strongly to a story in the Daily Mail today, which claimed Perchard’s senior, health and social services minister Ben Shenton, had “mocked” the police investigation in an e-mail to colleagues.

Perchard said Shenton's criticisms were "not representative of the attitude" among Jersey officials.

Welcomes Ofsted
Perchard also said he would welcome regulation of children’s services on the island by Ofsted."We have nothing to hide and want to learn," he said. Perchard said the Jersey government had been in discussions with Ofsted for the past four years, but nothing had been resolved "due to resource issues."

The minister spoke to Community Care as Jersey's chief minister Frank Walker faced calls to resign over his handling of child abuse allegations on the island.

Facebook
More than 1,000 people have joined the Facebook site Vote Frank Walker out of the States, while another group Jersey's Frank Walker Should Resign has more than 300 members.

This weekend, there will be a public gathering on the island to express support for victims of child abuse as the police investigation continues.

The Howard League for Penal Reform are sending their own review team to the island at the end of this month.

More information

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National press related articles

Daily Mail: The 'saboteur': Jersey's minister for child welfare mocks police chief heading case

Community Care related articles

Island's safeguarding chief 'shocked' by revelations

Jersey: how the story unfolded

All recent Jersey articles from Community Care
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Postby hiddenite » Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:29 am

"Daughter of Jersey care home boss claims her 'monster' father subjected to her rape ordeal
Last updated at 14:52pm on 06.03.08

The boss of the Jersey care "home of horror" was a paedophile who raped his own foster daughter, according to sensational new claims.

Tina Blee, 38, has come forward to tell how the "monster" forced himself on her repeatedly, starting when she was only 10 years old.

She claims Colin Tilbrook regularly raped her, usually on a specific night when his wife was out for the evening, after she moved into his home aged six.


The Haut de la Garenne children's home, which was run by Colin Tilbrook in the 60s. His foster daughter has now revealed that he raped her repeatedly, starting when she was 10


She said: "He was a monster and I want the world to know in the hope it will help the police."

Tilbrook, who died 20 years ago, ran the the Haut de la Garenne care home in St Martin, Jersey, during the height of a paedophile ring's regime in the 1960s.

Police have reportedly already identified him as a prime suspect in their investigation into possible abuse and even murder of children who stayed at the home.

Ms Blee told the Sun: "He abused me too but at least I survived. To think he may have been involved in the deaths of children is almost beyond belief.

"At least I am here to tell the truth about him. What he did to me has affected my entire life."

She lived with Mr Tilbrook and his second wife after he left Jersey and moved to Dorset, where he had incredibly secured a job as a council social worker vetting children's homes.

Within months, he was "checking" her as each time she went for a shower and by the time she was 10, she was being raped every week.

"I still had a social worker but he told me that if I told them they wouldn't believe me.

"They'd believe him because he was important in the social services department and I'd end up in a home like I'd started in. He knew I had nowhere to go."


Ms Blee also told how he abused her in "other ways" and was domineering and sexually forceful, with a short temper.

She said she never confided in her foster mother at the time because she was so terrified that she would not be believed.

The attacks only ended when Tilbrook met another woman, Carol, who was to become his third wife.

Police are reportedly now going to interview Ms Blee about the allegations and her knowledge of Tilbrook.

Her claims came as Jersey's minister for child welfare was facing accusations of sabotaging the inquiry into child sex abuse on the island.

Ben Shenton sent an email to cabinet colleagues ridiculing the investigation and mocking Lenny Harper, the policeman in charge.

"My wife keeps referring to Lenny Harper as Lenny Henry - I don't think she's far wrong," said the health and social services minister in his extraordinary message.

Mr Shenton questions whether Mr Harper - Jersey's deputy chief police officer - has ever been investigated for "adult abuse".

He ridicules the idea that the remains found last week beneath the Haut de la Garenne children's home belonged to a child rather than to animals.

And he attacks Wendy Kinnard, a fellow senator whose home affairs ministry oversees the police in the Crown dependency.

"Wendy, why was it announced to the media that a child's body was found when this was not the case?" wrote Mr Shenton.

"Why have you allowed your ministry to be run in such an unprofessional and shameful manner?"

He claims that one sex abuse victim, purportedly interviewed by The Times this week, died last year.

More than 160 others have told police they were abused at the "Colditz" care home between the 1950s and its closure in 1986. At least 40 suspects have been identified.


When the Daily Mail confronted Mr Shenton, a 46-year-old father of two, about his email, sent three days ago, he said: "It was an internal email. I'm just trying to get at the facts."

He dismissed his comparison between Mr Harper and Lenny Henry the comedian as "a slip of the tongue".

But Mr Harper, who moved to Jersey six years ago after serving with distinction in the Metropolitan, RUC and Strathclyde police forces - said he was taking the slurs seriously.

He plans to seek legal advice with a view to a libel action and warned that the email could be "a godsend" to defence lawyers when charges relating to the investigation are laid.

"The letter is rather childish but it's a clear attempt to damage the inquiry and therefore damage the interests of all those who were abused in that home," said the 56-year-old officer.

"You may well ask why the very man responsible for children's welfare on this island would wish to sabotage the investigation.

"That is for him to explain but all I can say is that it will not work. Nothing will distract me from getting justice.

"They deserve much better and I am determined they will get that from the State of Jersey police."

Mr Harper is said to have upset leading Jersey figures by briefing journalists on his investigation.

But he said the Association of Chief Police Officers had endorsed his methods which had also led to a large number of alleged victims coming forward.

The abuse scandal is a deep embarrassment to the tax haven island where privacy and discretion are paramount.

•The chief minister of Jersey was facing calls to resign last night.

Five groups demanding the removal of Frank Walker over his handling of the Haut de la Garenne inquiry have appeared on the Facebook networking website.

He is likely to face further criticism in a rally due to be held in the capital St Helier this weekend calling for a change in the way the island is run.


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I know Jersey very well

Postby lucky » Thu Mar 06, 2008 4:21 pm

Having lived there and have many friends that live on the island.There are two things which always creeped me out; firstly ,without exception all the people i knew left the island for a few years but they all came back (bear in mind its only 12x5 miles and not alot to do) secondly the 'old' families can do no wrong and are part of the ruling elite of the island, they have their own currency,stamps laws... I can only give one personal anecdote about a 'family' member who was caught with 4 oz of hash (you need to be aware the drug laws are positivly middle eastern and you can be jailed for the residue they find in an ashtray) he went to court payed a fine had no press coverage and 3 months later went to the states for a holiday as he had no criminal record to stop him.. I know its not much but it may give you a flavour of the place.
There's holes in the sky where rain gets in
the holes are small
that's why rain is thin.
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Postby AhabsOtherLeg » Thu Mar 06, 2008 7:00 pm

Thanks for the info Anti (and everyone else, too). I had heard about the Islington cases, but never knew Hodge had played a part in the Jersey case. These people get around, don't they?

What I'd been half-expecting to find was some link between Harper and the whitewashed Kincora Boy's Home Inquiry back in the day, but I haven't found anything yet. That would be a tangential Paisley link, I suppose, since Kincora was all about compromising top Loyalists/Unionist leaders, and later Westminster pols too. Maybe he's clean. I suppose he would've been a bit young, and not very high-up, to be involved at a high enough level in that investigation/cover-up.

I've been reading a few of the Jersey forums lately, and Harper's policing style on the island comes in for a fair bit of criticism as being heavy-handed, intrusive, authoritarian, etc. against the general population. Also ineffective. http://www.bbc.co.uk/jersey/content/art ... ture.shtml

"More concerned with protecting property than people," would seem to be the consensus - although the consensus also suggests there are certain people on the island he takes great pains to protect. I don't know whether that's true or not, but a tax-haven with a history of dodgy finance is not going to hire a pure white knight.

If nothing else, with Walker's stupid comments on Newsnight, and this new internal email by Ben Shenton, we are seeing what an enclosed and secretive bunch the rulers of Jersey are, and how poorly they react to public scrutiny of any kind. They almost seem offended by the fact that anyone is interested in child welfare.

Hodge's piece on Britishness was indeed pretty transparent, as bad as Brown's from a couple of years back, but if she's hoping to cover the stink of her past with a little hissy fit over the Proms, she'll definitely have to try harder.
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NPR story on Sat. morning Weekend Edition

Postby pepsified thinker » Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:03 pm

I missed this thread somehow, so the NPR story caught me by surprise--seemed somewhat amazing that NPR would break a story like that in that location. Now I see there's already been a lot of mainstream coverage.

I saw one story (maybe it's already posted above? I'm going to read the thread now to see what's already known) with a description of a corpse sniffing dog going 'berserk'.

Could there be a more awful (as in 'awe full'), powerful way of conveying unknown horrors?

The dog-comment is not from the NPR story, but here's that NPR story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88008159
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