Mick Hartley

The media frenzy about a ring of murdering paedophiles in Jersey turns out to be nonsense:

Detectives probing alleged abuse at a Jersey children's home have said no-one was murdered there and previously released evidence had been inaccurate.

The Deputy Chief Officer, David Warcup, said there was no evidence that any children had been murdered or bodies destroyed at the former home.

Police are investigating abuse claims centring on Haut de la Garenne home.

Former police chief Lenny Harper said he was "surprised" by the comments, which misrepresented what he had said.

Mr Warcup expressed "much regret" at "misleading" information released by his predecessor on items found at the property.

Detectives said only three of the bone fragments found could be human, and two of these were hundreds of years old.

Detective Superintendent Michael Gradwell then discredited a number of the claims made about the operation by the island's former deputy chief officer, Lenny Harper.

• After being examined by experts from the British Museum, a fragment thought to have been from a skull turned out to be a piece of Victorian coconut shell.

• "Shackles" found in rubble turned out to be "a rusty piece of metal", and there was no evidence to suggest it had been used for anything suspicious.

• There was no blood in the cellar, and the bath blood was said to have been found in had not been used since 1920.

• The "secret underground chambers" were just holes in the floor, "not dungeons or cellars".

• Most of the 170 pieces of bone found in the search came from animals. Three were human and two of these dated from between 1470-1670 and 1650-1950 respectively.

Mr Warcup said: "Our assessment is that the forensic recoveries do not indicate that there have been murders of children or other persons at Haut de la Garenne.

"Nor do we believe that the evidence indicates that bodies have been destroyed, buried or hidden at Haut de la Garenne.

"It's very unfortunate and I very much regret that information was put into the public domain by the States of Jersey police about certain finds at Haut de la Garenne, which was not strictly accurate."

The investigation into the home had cost "just over £4m", Mr Warcup added.

I linked to a piece Richard Webster wrote on this case back in April. The press, as he reminds us today (in an excerpt from a new postscript to his book The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch Hunt) have played a less than glorious role in this whole charade:

On Saturday 23 February 2008, a team of police officers and forensic experts made a discovery which would transform an obscure police inquiry in a picturesque corner of Jersey into a global media frenzy. The discovery took place inside the main building of the former Haut de la Garenne children’s home. It was reportedly made not by the officers themselves but by a trained sniffer dog which had previously taken part in the search for Madeleine McCann after her abduction in Portugal. Almost immediately the police issued a press release saying that they had found ‘what appears to be potential remains of a child’.

A press conference was held and the effect on journalists was electric. News of the discovery rapidly shot to the top of radio and television news bulletins. That evening the BBC website headlined its story ‘Child’s body found at care home’. It went on to say that ‘parts of a child’s body’ had been discovered and that the remains were thought to date ‘from the early 1980s’. Deputy Chief Police Officer Lenny Harper was quoted as saying that detectives ‘think there is the possibility they may find more remains’.

Within 24 hours this gruesome story spread around the globe amidst talk of a possible paedophile ring. The Guardian reported that ‘half a dozen bodies’ might be found and quoted Harper as saying: ‘There could be six or more. It could be higher than that.’ Journalists descended on Jersey from all over the world. Massive resources were poured into what rapidly became a multi-million pound inquiry, and teams of experts were brought in from all over the UK. Meanwhile both broadsheet and tabloid newspapers carried reports of cover-ups, of sinister political machinations, of the involvement of prominent Jersey politicians and of allegations which in the past went unheeded.

Almost every one of the motifs which had emerged in the North Wales story [ie Bryn Estyn] seemed to be present again. The only significant difference was that the publicity in this case focused not so much on sexual abuse as on the idea that former residents of children’s homes had been secretly tortured and murdered after being raped by those en-trusted with their care.

There was only one problem. This was that practically every element of the initial story, as relayed by the media, was untrue.

The chief of police has been suspended. So how much will the press berate themselves for their part in all this, I wonder?

Well OK, no I don't.