Ex-Senator Stuart Syvret was at the forefront of a decade-long campaign to expose the Island’s failings which allowed systemic child abuse to remain hidden for decades.
In an interview with the JEP, the ex-Health Minister reveals the battles he faced in trying to expose child abuse in Jersey and the mental anguish he suffered as a result.
He said as a result of his involvement in attempting to expose the scandal he ‘routinely gets death threats’ and that he could never go back to politics.
‘No one can understand what fighting this war was like,’ he said. ‘I will be alone for the rest of my life in that sense.
‘It has damaged me too much. I will never recover from this.’
Earlier this week, the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry released its report on abuse suffered by children in States-owned care homes.
Much of the report confirmed what Mr Syvret had first tried to uncover a decade earlier. He vowed that despite the report’s release, the ‘war continues’ against those who abused children.
He said: ‘As far as I am concerned it will go on until those criminals are brought to justice. I want the abusers brought to justice and those responsible for the conspiracy to protect those abusers to be prosecuted.’
He added that the inquiry, chaired by Frances Oldham QC, had made some ‘very good recommendations’ but had not gone far enough.
Full interview in Saturday’s JEP.
