Search for more bodies at Jersey care home

The search for more bodies at a former children's home in Jersey is focused on a bricked-up cellar where police fear they may make further grim discoveries.

Sniffer dogs trained to detect human remains have indicated that something may lie hidden in the large basement which stretches under an internal courtyard at Haut de la Garenne.

Children at the home - which closed in 1986 and is now a youth hostel - are thought to have been locked up in solitary confinement as a punishment, and may have spent time in the cellar.

On Saturday a child's skull was found buried under concrete at the building in St Martin, and a further six sites, including the cellar, will now be excavated after being flagged up by the dogs and by ground-penetrating radar.

A total of 150 people claiming to have been victims of abuse have now contacted police since an appeal was made last year in what may prove to be one of the worst child abuse scandals in Britain.

Detectives fear the alleged abuse may date back to the 1940s and are scouring missing persons records for possible murder victims.

Deputy Chief Officer Lenny Harper, leading the investigation, said forensic specialists were struggling to access the cellar because they are worried they will destroy crucial evidence in the process.

He said: "The dog indicated above the cellar where there seems to be some sort of backfill. He indicated a number of areas but there was one area which he indicated more than others.

"It is a very slow and methodical process which is likely to continue for some time."
Mr Harper said bones found at the building five years ago – which were presumed to be from an animal – had been located in one of the areas recently identified by the sniffer dog.

"But because they were declared to be animal bones, they may well have been destroyed," he added.

Police decided to dig up the property after three former residents – two of whom still live on the island - voiced fears that children they knew had disappeared at the home.

As the investigation continued, more information emerged about the children's home, dubbed "Colditz" by one former resident, where children were kept to a strict routine and physical punishment was alleged to be a regular occurrence.

One former inhabitant, Frank Lewis, described how he was beaten by the headmaster who was eventually dismissed for ill-treatment.

He told the Jersey Evening Post in 1979: "Within a week, he'd flogged me until I bled in front of the whole school and had cut off a boy's finger with a sharp cane."

It also emerged that a paedophile – dubbed the "Beast of Jersey" – visited Haut de la Garenne dressed as a Father Christmas during the 1960s.

Edward Paisnel, a building contractor, was jailed in 1971 for 30 years for a string of attacks on women and children over 11 years. Also known as the "Jersey Rapist", he abducted and abused children in the parish of St Martin – where Haut de la Garenne is located - and threatened to kill them if they told anyone they had been attacked.

He was found guilty of 13 counts of assault, rape and sodomy. On searching his home, officers discovered an altar to the devil in a secret room.

Jersey police said there was no evidence at this stage to link Paisnel - who died in 1994 - with the current investigation.
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