No, Sir Philip, child abuse is the real scandal, not UK press coverage

IT has been well documented in recent days that many Islanders feel strongly that it was inappropriate for the Chief Minister and the Bailiff to use their Liberation Day speeches as platforms to attack the press coverage of the continuing investigation into child abuse.

While agreeing that their choice of subject matter on such a special day was ill-judged, I would like to draw one particular statement by the Bailiff to the attention of readers. My quotations are taken verbatim from his speech.

Directly after referring to the matter as ‘the Island’s so-called child abuse scandal’ (in the context of his speech a clear derogation of the issue), the Bailiff continued: ‘All child abuse, wherever it happens, is scandalous, but it is the unjustified and remorseless denigration of Jersey and her people that is the real scandal.’

The real scandal? Let us be clear here. The Bailiff – the president of the legislature and the Royal Court, who speaks for and to Islanders on matters of law – is saying that the ‘real scandal’ is not the issue of child abuse in Jersey, but rather the manner of its press coverage. Child abuse, then, according to the Bailiff, while being a scandal, is a minor or insignificant matter compared with the way it is reported by the press.

The Bailiff is a lawyer. As such, he is a man who chooses his words carefully; he says what he means, and means what he says. These are admirable qualities. The Liberation Day speech will be one of his most high-profile speeches in the course of a year, and, as such, will have been carefully drafted. It’s inconceivable, then, that this will have been a slip of the tongue, or a throwaway remark. He clearly genuinely believes that a fortnight or so of frenzied press coverage is a more serious problem for the Island than the potential of decades of child abuse and its associated blind-eye turning.

Clearly both the Bailiff’s and Chief Minister’s speeches must be seen within the context of the recent criticism which both of them have received in the press and on internet forums.

I believe that the Bailiff’s words were gravely ill-judged. They were insulting to victims of child abuse, to those who work with vulnerable children, and to the continuing police investigation. Furthermore, they demonstrate an extraordinary lack of empathy with the populace which he serves.

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