This Is Jersey

THE fragment described as ‘the potential remains of a child’ found at Haut de la Garenne is not human, the man now in charge of the historical child abuse inquiry has said.

Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell told journalists at a press conference at police headquarters today that he was satisfied, along with other qualified senior investigating officers, including the Metropolitan Police review team, that there was no indication that murders had taken place at Haut de la Garenne.

Showing journalists from the Island and the national media slides of the item alleged to have been a child’s skull fragment, Mr Gradwell said that after speaking to Julie Roberts, the anthropologist who originally identified it as potentially a piece of a child’s skull, and two scientific experts, he was satisfied that the item was not human.

Mr Gradwell went on to say that no people had been reported missing at the former children’s home. There had been no credible allegations of murder, no murder suspects, nor a specific time period for murder. ‘No supporting evidence has been found for any credible hypothesis relating to the murder or any disposal of bodies at Haut de la Garenne,’ said Mr Gradwell.

Referring to events which followed the unearthing of the fragment, he said that after the anthropologist had identified it as possibly a piece of a child’s skull on the morning of Saturday 23 February, the senior investigating officer, deputy police chief Lenny Harper, made the decision to release information about the find to the media.

A press conference was held that afternoon disclosing the item as ‘the potential remains of a child’ which had been uncovered in earth now known to have links with the Victorian era, Mr Gradwell said.

On 31 March Dr Tom Higham from the Oxford Radio Carbon Accelerator Unit told the States police that he believed the item found was not bone. ‘By 14 April the anthropologist who had originally identified the item as a possible child’s skull fragment no longer gave that view,’ Mr Gradwell said.

Due to repeated references in the media to the item as being ‘a skull fragment’, Dr Hyam wrote a letter to the States police saying that the technician undertaking tests on it had reported that the material did not behave like bone and that he and a Dr Jacobi from the British Museum had concluded that the sample was not bone, but was almost certainly wood.

Further, it was more likely to be part of a seed casing, more like a small piece of coconut, and their conclusion was the sample was neither bone nor human. Mr Gradwell said that he was satisfied after speaking to the original anthropologist, as well as to Dr Higham and other experts, that this item, found in a layer of earth with links with the Victorian era, was not human.

Among the forensic exhibits found in rubble on the ground floor of the former children’s home were shackles, mentioned in the media but never named publicly as such by Mr Harper. Mr Gradwell said: ‘These are rusty pieces of metal.’

There was no witness evidence or intelligence which indicated that they should be described as shackles or that shackles resembling this description had been used during the commission of any offences, he added.

The same applied to the items referred to as ‘restraints’, found on 11 April under the floor of the area identified by the search team as cellar four. There was no evidence or intelligence indicating that this was anything suspicious, said Mr Gradwell.

On the issue of the bath and the claims of blood stains found in there, Mr Gradwell pointed out that it had no water supply and had not been used as a bath since the 1920s, when a brick pillar was built within it.

He said: ‘Although a police dog reacted to the bath and a presumptive, early test indicated positive for blood in a minute area of the bath, following detailed forensic microscopic examination no blood has been found in the bath. There was nothing suspicious about the bath and no evidence indicating that it was used in any offences.’

Showing a slide of a police officer who is 5 ft 10 in tall finding it impossible to stand up in the so-called cellars at the home, Mr Gradwell said those areas were floor voids and not cellars; nor, as they were referred to in some of the media, were they either dungeons or punishment rooms.

Moving on to focus on the 65 children’s teeth found at Haut de la Garenne, Mr Gradwell said that they could have been milk teeth from at least ten people or up to a maximum of 65 people. An experienced odontologist had said that indications had been that 45 teeth originated from children aged between nine and 12 and that 20 had come from those aged six to eight years.

‘The wear on some of the teeth has given the general appearance of them having been shed naturally,’ he said. ‘As adult teeth form in the jaw line and skull of children at an early age, it is difficult to understand why no adult teeth were discovered if this was a suspicious find.’

Referring to the practice in some families of keeping their children’s first teeth, Mr Gradwell, who has two children, said that they still had 35 milk teeth kept as a memento at his house. ‘Remember that Haut de la Garenne was a children’s home for so many years,’ he said.

Focusing on the 170 pieces of bone unearthed during the excavation, Mr Gradwell said that some of those found inside the home had been examined and had been mainly animal bones. ‘The many more bone pieces found in the grounds and in the surrounding area had all been animal bones,’ he added.

Of all that amount of material, there were three fragments which were possibly human, the biggest of which was 25 mm long. Two of those fragments date from between 1450 and 1650 and the other fragment dates between 1650 and 1950.

‘I repeat that these have not definitely been identified as human bone. Taking all that information into consideration, this is an unexplained find if it is human, but not necessarily suspicious,’ he said.

In relation to the pits which had been dug in the grounds of the former children’s home in the 1970s and excavated by the police team, Mr Gradwell said that they had not been full of lime and that nothing suspicious had been found there.

Mr Gradwell was selected from 27 experienced senior investigating officers in the UK to take over the day-to-day running of the historical child abuse inquiry on a year’s secondment after deputy police chief Lenny Harper, who had previously led it, retired in August.

Experienced in investigating multi-fatality incidents, Mr Gradwell has also investigated previous child abuse sex offences.

Asked by the JEP about the direction the Island’s historical abuse inquiry would take now that any murders had been ruled out, he said that his main focus would be to take forward the investigation being carried out by the large, professional team into the allegations of child abuse.

Article posted on 12th November, 2008 - 2.54pm