The Island of Jersey’s most senior police officer was suspended on Wednesday as detectives concluded that no children had been murdered in the former care home at the center of a £4.5 million (US$6.7 million) investigation into child abuse on the island, part of the Channel Islands between the UK and France.
Graham Power, Jersey’s chief of police, oversaw the historic abuse inquiry into the Haut de la Garenne children’s home. In February police announced that they had found the “potential remains of a child” buried under the Victorian building and about £1.5 million was spent on excavations.
But on Wednesday the new officer directly in charge of the case said there had never been compelling evidence to justify the excavation, and much of what was found there did not suggest murder, contrary to initial police reports.
None of the suspicious items discovered at Haut de la Garenne, including “shackles” and “restraints,” a bath allegedly stained with blood and fragments of what were initially said to be human bones and teeth, indicated murder, Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell said at his first press conference since taking charge of the investigation.
Of the 170 bone fragments found at the site, scientific analysis has proved that only three could be human; two of those might date back as far as 1470, and the other to between 1650 and 1950, Gradwell said.
Graffiti found in a cellar under the house, which read “I’ve been bad 4 years and years,” had been scrawled on a post that was only added to the building in 2003, when it was being turned into a youth hostel.
“There are no credible allegations of murder, there are no suspects for murder and no specific time period for murder,” said Gradwell, who took over the case in September after the retirement of Lenny Harper, the first investigating officer and Power’s deputy.
Gradwell reached his conclusion after completing a review of the case with independent officers from the Metropolitan police. He said he had begun to have doubts about the way the inquiry was heading just 48 hours after taking up his position on Sept. 8 this year.
He said, however, that he was still taking very seriously wide-ranging allegations of serious sexual abuse at Haut de la Garenne and at other care institutions on the island.
So far two men have been charged with committing sexual offences at the home.
Graham Power, the island’s chief police officer, was suspended yesterday by Andrew Lewis, Jersey’s home affairs minister, as an inquiry was launched into what went wrong with the police investigation.
Lewis said: “It is evident that we didn’t receive all the information about the historic abuse inquiry that we should have received, and that some aspects of this critically important police investigation have not been conducted properly. We are determined to find out why this happened and who was responsible.”
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