The documents can be viewed at the abuse inquiry website here. [/breakout]
The Independent Jersey Care Inquiry, which is on a break from public hearings until later this month, has heard from hundreds of witnesses including abuse victims, alleged attackers and former politicians responsible for the provision of child care in the Island.
However, the panel have also received a huge number of documents which have not been heard during public hearings.
These largely centre on potential witnesses who are now dead, those who were unwilling to give live oral evidence and people whom the inquiry decided not to call publicly, as it felt that the most efficient way to receive their evidence was through the documents.
Among the more than 2,000 pages released are further allegations of abuse, potential paedophile rings and cover-ups as well as evidence from the 2008 police investigation into historical child abuse codenamed Operation Rectangle.
Paedophile ring claim
ALLEGATIONS of a high-profile paedophile ring operating in the 1960s and 70s have been submitted to the inquiry.
During Operation Rectangle an officer’s report by Chief Inspector Paul Goddard stated that a witness, whose name has been redacted, made allegations that a paedophile ring was active in the Island 40 to 50 years ago. The witness stated that he believed former shop owner Jeff Le Marquand was the ringleader.
The witness also claimed that he was paid £3,000 to leave the Island at some point during the 1960s and 70s by the group and that a detective sergeant in the States police at the time was aware of this. He claimed that this money was paid to him in an office at the Royal Court.
The officer’s report, which was written in 2009, said that the witness spent his childhood coming to Jersey. In it, Chief Insp Goddard said: ‘He states further that as a result of the connections of those involved – along with their standing in the community – in the paedophile ring in Jersey he was paid £3,000 and advised to leave the Island.
The witness said that one of the men he met was a detective sergeant, who he said was not involved in the paedophile ring. This policeman said that he was ‘not able to deal with the issues due to corruption in higher office’, the documents state.
During public evidence earlier this year, the inquiry heard from Witness 138, who claimed that he had been the victim of a series of sexual assaults after leaving Haut de la Garenne and that he suspected that this was part of a much larger sexual abuse network.
Witness 138, who is not the person who made the statement to the police in 2009, claimed that he had been ‘passed over’ to his abuser by Mr Le Marquand, who had previously been charged with sodomy and indecent assault in 1966. Mr Le Marquand died in 2003.
In other documents released by the inquiry, Witness 8, a female member of staff at Haut de la Garenne, said that Mr Le Marquand ‘was well known in Jersey for liking children’ and that people would ‘joke about not bending down near his shop’.
Wilfred Krichefski
WILFRED Krichefski – one of the Island’s most high-profile politicians of the 1960s – has been implicated in child abuse.
Some allegations against the former Senator have been covered in the public hearings, and further allegations are contained in the online documents.
It had also been alleged by a former police officer that he was told to stop an investigation into Mr Krichefski, although in a subsequent police interview the same officer denies his earlier account.
Krichefski, a former Senator who died in 1974, was accused by a former resident of Haut de la Garenne of raping him in a back room at the home.
The witness, who was a resident at Haut de la Garenne in the early 1960s, told police that he was taken from his dormitory to another room by two members of staff. He says that he was ‘handed over’ to two people – one of whom was Mr Krichefski. The same witness claims that he told a psychiatrist about the abuse but was accused of making it up.
Meanwhile, in other evidence that has been released by the inquiry, former police officer Barrie Stead initially alleged that he was stopped from investigating allegations that Mr Krichefski created ‘blue films’ at St Saviour’s Hospital and Haut de la Garenne that involved residents.
Mr Stead, who worked at the force between 1964 and 1968, reportedly said that he started an investigation into Mr Krichefski and an unnamed former Channel TV cameraman about the filming. At the time, Mr Krichefski was chairman of Channel TV.
The former police officer reportedly told police during Operation Rectangle that he was told to stop investigating and that ‘nothing was ever done about it’.
However, in a subsequent interview with police, Mr Stead claimed that he did not say Mr Krichefski and the cameraman were responsible for the filming of pornography at Haut de la Garenne.
Mr Stead told police during the second interview that an allegation had been made and that an investigation was started, but was suddenly halted. He talked about a ‘cover-up’ involving the States police and the Defence Committee, which was run by Mr Krichefski, although he denies implicating the former Senator and cameraman as making pornographic films at Haut de la Garenne.
The reason for the differing information in the two interviews is unexplained.
Further documents relating to allegations against the former Senator reveal that a police investigation was launched in 2008 into an attempted blackmail against a man, whose name has been redacted. It is alleged that the man was trying to blackmail an associate of Mr Krichefski after he obtained pictures of the pair abusing a child. No further details have been released. The former Senator was never convicted of any offence.
Clos des Sables
QUESTIONS were raised about the ‘lack of action’ taken by a member of staff at Children’s Services following disclosures of potential abuse.
In 1989, Les Hughes, a house father at Clos des Sables, a family group home, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to five charges including unlawful sexual intercourse, indecent assault and committing an act of gross indecency.
In the recently released documents, then Crown Advocate Cyril Whelan wrote to Anton Skinner, who at the time was head of Children’s Services, to raise concerns about the perceived lack of action from a member of staff within Children’s Services when the allegations started to arise.
In his letter Mr Whelan states that two girls – one of whom was a victim of Hughes – had reported sexual abuse at the family group home long before the allegations were investigated by the police.
‘Whatever the surrounding circumstances may be, clearly it can be established that complaints were made too and that she took no effective action.’
It is unclear what happened following the sending of the letter or whether any internal investigation was carried out by Children’s Services.
The inquiry has previously heard allegations of cover-ups and a lack of action when victims reported alleged abuse.
Earlier this year, Mr Skinner told the inquiry that the way he handled an investigation into Alan and Jane Maguire – the former house parents at Blanche Pierre family group home who were accused of physical abuse against children – could have been perceived as a cover-up, but that that had never been his intention.
One of the inquiry’s key aims during the most recent phases of public hearings has been to determine how abuse had remained hidden for so long.
The Independent Jersey Care Inquiry has been set up to establish what went wrong in the Island’s care system over many years and to find answers for people who suffered abuse as children.
The hearings will be held in public, although at times the Panel may hear evidence in private session.
The hearings will start in due course, once all necessary arrangements are in place. Dates and times will be published on this website.
At the moment the Inquiry Team is collecting evidence from potential witnesses. These include people who were in care, those who worked in Jersey care services or came into contact with them, whatever their perspective.
The Inquiry Panel wants to build up as full a picture as possible so that it can then be in a position to make recommendations, ensuring that the Island’s care system is fit for its purpose of caring for vulnerable children and young people.
The privacy and confidentiality of potential witnesses will be respected and details of how this will be achieved can be found on the website.
On 2nd March 2011 the States Assembly formally requested the Council of Ministers to establish a Committee of Inquiry to investigate a number of ‘unresolved issues’ in relation to historical abuse in the Island:
(1) What measures were taken to address inappropriate behaviour from staff when it was discovered, and if those measures were insufficient, what other measures should have been taken?
(2) How did those in authority at political and officer level deal with problems that were brought to their attention?
(3) Were there any mechanisms in operation to allow children to report their concerns in safety; and what action was taken if and when concerns were voiced?
