Abusewatch Jersey - April 2008

BBC Panorama had a good report on the situation

full details at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/jersey/7322767.stm

Mr Moed, who worked at the home [Haut De La Garenne] as a junior house parent in the 1960s, told of how he tried to raise the alarm about the headmaster Colin Tilbrook's abuse of children - but claims his warnings were ignored.

He said: "I saw him in the dormitory one evening walking with a pillow under his arm. And I asked a colleague who he was and what he was doing and they said 'Oh that's Tilbrook, he carries the pillow so you can't hear the girls screaming'."

Mr Moed was then told that Tilbrook had recently got a 14-year-old girl pregnant and that she'd had to have an abortion. Mr Moed says that he went to the police - but that he was advised not to talk about what he had seen.

Community Care reports on June Thoburn

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2008/04/02/107781/jersey-june-thoburn-criticises-child-protection-committee.html
(full details on this link)

Jersey's child protection committee could have done more to prevent abuse in the past, according to its chair June Thoburn, a UK social work expert. Thoburn, who is emeritus professor of social work at East Anglia University, told Community Care the committee, which is similar to a local safeguarding children board, was "too closely linked" to children's services. Thoburn, who was appointed as independent chair of the committee last year by former social services minister Stuart Syvret, said the "same people" had run both the committee and children's services. "Children maltreated in the past did not go to the child protection committee as they did not see it as separate from children's services," she said.Thoburn told Community Care she wanted to give the island's child protection committee "more teeth" by ensuring that it would have an independent chair and a "watchdog role".

http://sprocket-trials.blogspot.com/2008/04/haut-de-la-garenne-and-continuing-cover.html

The Panorma programme mentions the cruel regime of the Maguires at the care home "Blanche Pierre":

In one home, called Blanche Pierre, the house parents Alan and Jane Maguire subjected children to what a later inquiry called "gross acts of physical and psychological abuse".

The Sprocket website notes that:

Stuart Syvret demanded the files [on Blanche Pierre] and was horrified as he read through the evidence. The extent and detail of abuse was so great, that the Jersey court saying the case against the Maguire's was dropped due to a lack of evidence is just plain bull. If you watched the Panorama program - and you really should – you are already aware of the letter sent to the Maguire's as they left Blanche Pierre thanking them for their 110% commitment and love shown to the children in their care. That 1990 letter of appreciation was authored by Iris Le Feuvre, then President of the then Education Committee.