Former DCO and Senior Investigating Officer of the Haut de la Garenne Child Abuse investigation (Operation Rectangle) Lenny Harper continues to answer the many questions that still remain surrounding this Investigation.
When will our “powers that be” start to realise that the truth is out, with more to come yet? In the meantime a big thank you must go out to Lenny Harper and Graham Power for continuing to support the survivors of unimaginable abuse and for having the courage and integrity to continue defying those who set out to intimidate and demoralise them into silence.
VOICE FOR CHILDREN – ANSWERS TO QUESTIONSI have been away from home for a couple of weeks and on my return I have noticed that a number of people have asked questions which they would like me to answer. As the postings have now been superseded with others, I have put them all together in this document which VFC has agreed to pass on.
The first few questions were posed by Rob Kent. In respect of the situation regarding evidence when I left I recall that we had, I think, eighteen priority suspects. Among these were several still employed in senior posts in the States and some with frightening access to vulnerable children. Senior civil servants and the ministers concerned in those departments were all aware of the situation as was the then Attorney General who had been briefed personally by me. Of these, at least eight were capable in my opinion of being charged. There might have been more. This number contained at least two of those mentioned above as being still in positions of trust. I had also personally briefed at least one Head of Department about someone under his command within the Health Department. I was continually patronised by senior legal figures who insisted that they as lawyers were the only ones who really knew if there was sufficient evidence to charge someone. This of course is utter nonsense. Thirty years of involvement in prosecutions, including charging and presenting our own cases in court, then close working with the CPS in England, the DPP’s office in Northern Ireland, and the Fiscal’s Department in Scotland had left me with massive experience in when there was sufficient evidence to charge. Events in Jersey proved this also, with me defying the then AG to have Wateridge charged and subsequently convicted, and in the case of the couple assaulting children with cricket bats when even the Centenier agreed that there was sufficient evidence to charge in spite of the Law Officers ordering us not to.
Among these cases where a number where if the allegations had been made in the UK there would have been prosecutions on the basis of similar fact evidence. One of these involved a high ranking States Official with access to children on a daily basis. Two separate individuals had made allegations against him which would have been considered both to be Rape in the UK. In Jersey, because of the law, one was seen as an indecent assault. I considered this to be semantics because the facts of the cases were still similar enough to charge. But not according to the Law Officers’ Department in Jersey.
As for part two of Rob’s question regarding how the investigation would have developed, there are a number of aspects to this. The investigation had already been extended out from the wardens and employees. As I have said, there were several in extremely high positions already being investigated. We would have, and I expected Gradwell to continue to do the same, kept on with the same lines of enquiry. We would have just kept on plugging away and gathering evidence in the same fashion. We were already looking at the investigations involving the Sea Cadets, some suggestions of a ring at HDLG (supported by witness statements in the convictions of other abusers – you may recall the ‘lending out of children to members of the boating fraternity), and the abuse by victims. All of these lines of enquiry seemed to be terminated when Gradwell and Warcup arrived.
I should have had some inkling that something was not quite right when on one of his visits over, Warcup spent several hours with the AG (longer than he spoke to me) and pronounced that he had got on very well with him. I should add that we had closed the live enquiries involving allegations of assaults within the Sea Cadets as the offences we uncovered were either not proceeded with by the law officers or the victims were reluctant. Allegations of cover-up by police officers, sea cadet officers, and other officials were not part of our remit at that time although I have no doubt that the evidence was so strong of threats, intimidation, (towards the victims) and downright dishonesty among certain officials (such as in the case of Maguires) that someone would have had to look at this eventually. The one exception to this was the involvement of a senior States of Jersey Police Officer who was clearly involved in obstructing earlier attempts to investigate HDLG and the involvement of other senior police officers in cover-ups. Graham Power and I instigated an investigation by one of the Yorkshire forces into this and I liaised closely with them. During all of this time I was being kept informed and all the signs were that the report would find this officer culpable of a number of discipline and possibly criminal offences. After my retirement I heard nothing of this enquiry and to the best of my knowledge it has been completely suppressed. When I retired the investigating officers were only a matter of a few days away from delivering their report. My view was that given the time, resources, and of course the political and establishment will, then prosecutions and convictions could have been brought in respect of these crimes which made worse the abuse already suffered by the victims. However, as can be seen from the moronic foot stomping and jeering in the States by certain members at the mention of child abuse, this was never going to be allowed.
Someone else mentions the cellars. I have gone over this again and Bob Hill has of course
blew it out of the water, but such is the denseness and sheer lack of objectivity of the JEP and its editorial team (oh dear – I am just about to bring another attack on me in its pages!) that it is worth repeating again. I personally escorted a number of those who have criticised the enquiry and subscribed publicly to the theory put about by Gradwell and Warcup that there were no cellars, around HDLG. This includes Diane Simon of the JEP, (she who has memory lapses from one article to another and forgets that she reported the fact that I refused to mention shackles), Deputy Andrew Lewis when he was in Home Affairs, Frank Walker (and his wife) when he was Chief Minister, and a number of others. They all clearly saw the cellars because I stood over them with all present and described what evidence we had about what had gone on in there. Their denials show either the onset of Dementia or outright lying. Only they know which it is.
And of course there is one other strange bit of behaviour recently highlighted by Voice For Children. That of
Deputy Kevin Lewis. When we had allegations of abuse in the cellars we were at a loss as to where these were or had been. Deputy Lewis very kindly came up to HDLG, described them to us and took us to the spot where we could access them. It was thanks to him that we found the cellars and all the teeth and children’s bones that we found in there – including those which the Anthropologist in Sheffield said were “fleshed and fresh” when burnt and buried. Why he did not come forward and contradict the obvious untruths in the now notorious press conference by Warcup and Gradwell, only he knows. It is perhaps a “tribute” to the power and the ruthlessness of those who do not want the truth to be known that a man like this is scared to do the right thing. For make no mistake about it, these people are powerful and ruthless. The examples are numerous. My own experience when early in the abuse enquiry I was being stopped for scurrilous reasons by the AG’s Honorary Police and the subject of false complaints which didn’t stop until I challenged the AG in a letter which I subsequently published in Senator Syvret’s blog, and all that has happened since then show the lengths to which they will go. This continues even recently when the charity I do some voluntary work for received anonymously, copies of the Jersey establishment malicious allegations against Graham Power and myself. Perhaps Kevin Lewis, as others, does not want to let himself in for this.
The new heating system was installed, we believed, late sixties or early seventies.
These are the answers to points I believed I missed whilst away. I apologise if I have left any out.
Lenny Harper
