Jersey care home debacle and the rule of the mob

The shambolic inquiry into ‘murders’ at Haut de la Garenne once again illustrates the hysteria that surrounds child abuse investigations

FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 12, 2008

If you spot a conclusion, leap to it. This is a principle often and dangerously embraced by police forces, and it has led down the years both to miscarriages of justice and to a huge waste of police time and resources. When it comes to accusations of paedophilia - which stands in the modern pantheon of potential evil alongside the witchcraft of yesteryear - the police frequently have eager allies in both social services and the experts. Today's suspension of the Jersey police chief, Graham Power, just might – when the next 'scandal' breaks – cause future investigators to pause for thought.

The story of Haut de la Garenne, the former Jersey children's home at which it was stated with very few 'ifs' or 'buts' that children had been abused and even murdered, has been a shambles. Remember how in February the world's media, the scent of

"A fragment of skull proved to be a Victorian coconut shell; 'shackles' were a rusty piece of metal; what human remains there were dated from the year dot; there weren't even blood stains"

blood upon their nostrils, descended on the Channel Island after allegations by former child residents led police to 'discover' a charnel house of human remains.

Only, they didn't. A fragment of skull proved to be a Victorian coconut shell; 'shackles' were a rusty piece of metal; what human remains there were - and most of the bone fragments were from animals – dated from the year dot; there weren't even blood stains. And the inquiry to establish these forensic truths has cost the taxpayer a cool £4m.

Of course paedophilia exists, and of course it is one of the most dreadful crimes, but for the past 20 years or so it has attracted

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With all due respect, it still fits the child abuse cover-up template we associate with the British Isles. The UK has the highest levels of educator sexual misconduct in the developed wotld, and the highest incidence of child pornography use. British teachers are notorious for sex offending in other peoples countries. Sex offenders are not banned from British schools, child sexual abuse, is part of the culture. The FBI had to work really hard to stop the DfES from sneaking FBI identified paedophiles into primary schools, thousands of teachers are referred to List 99 each year. Britain employs large numbers of civil servants, who do nothing else, but cover-up child sexual abuse. It is strange but true.

Posted by Yvette at 6:43pm on November 12, 2008

Allegations of child killing at Haut de la Garenne appear to have no equivalent in the rest of the UK or in France. They were however extremely common in my country Ireland during the period 1999-04 approx. Several leading journalists, broadcasters and members of "Child Victims" groups claimed that children had been killed at Industrial Schools run by the Christian Brothers. There was a major digging operation at one school - Letterfrack - plus an exhumation of the body of a boy who died in 1970. (This confirmed that he died of natural causes - as had the 1970 inquest.) ................... However many of these claims actually related to times when no boy had died of any cause. I used the terms "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders" to describe this hysteria. Unfortunately I won't get into any Dictionary of Quotations because I find from the Internet that they already exist - in relation to Vampirism for example. (At least this is appropriate!) ..................... The hysteria simply died away and most people have forgotten about it now because the media types who promoted the lunacy, have no intention of repenting. ..................... I think what happened in Jersey is a version of our Irish Witch-hunt. AND Lenny Harper is from Derry!

Posted by Rory Connor at 2:34am on November 13, 2008

I think a systematic approach using what information experts today know about the ghastly problem of child sexual abuse should be undertaken to determine if sexual abuse has happened, and to prevent it from happening. Yvette's post was well-reasoned. I'll be more systematic: The FBI's former chief profiler, Clindt Van Zandt, termed Pornography "The bridge to sexual assault and child sexual molestation." Other agencies, including the U.S. DOJ, and universitites like Johns Hopkins find continually that Pornorgraphy is implicated in nearly every case of child sexual abuse. JH also found that adult pornography was many times used to lure or desensitize children. Therefore, Pornography use by teachers (cops, professors, maintenance workers, etc.)--anyone who works with children--should be screened. This is a pro-active measure to ensure that porn addicts will have nothing to do with children. Let's look at Pornography: Pornography is a Greek word. Porno means "substitute wife/in place of a wife"; Graphy is writing or anyway disseminating the idea that it's okay to have a substitute wife. Many researchers and government agencies have found that the vast majority of women in pornography (the sex industry) were sexually abused when young. It is a vicious cycle. Get rid of the porn, and we will get rid of child sexual molestation. People who do not use porn have no propensity--at all--to sexually abuse children.

Posted by Carrie Boyer at 10:11pm on November 13, 2008