And Chief Minister Frank Walker has promised that the police investigation will receive all the resources it needs to bring whoever is responsible to justice.

Senator Syvret, who was sacked by the Council of Ministers last summer after a political row over his allegations about child protection failures, said: ‘It is yet another particularly extreme and tragic example of the decades of failure in proper care and competence in the child care and the child protection apparatus of the Island.

Senator Walker said that the discovery of a child’s remains would shock and horrify Islanders, and pledged that any resources the police needed would be placed at their disposal.