Haut de la Garenne: No murders
Wednesday 12th November 2008, 10:10AM GMT.
NO child murders took place at Haut de la Garenne, police have concluded after a major review of evidence gathered during the excavation of the former children’s home.
The review has rejected several of the key claims made during the investigation into historical child abuse by former deputy police chief Lenny Harper, who led it.
Deputy police chief David Warcup, who now has strategic responsibility for the inquiry, said today at a press conference held at police headquarters that some of the information given out in police statements during the investigation had been incorrect.
• Full report in today’s Jersey Evening Post
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I doubt very much that your headline is correct. At most all that can be said is there is no evidence to shed light on how the children whose bones and teeth were found died. That is very different from saying there were no murders at Haut de la Garenne.
The fact that the bones were hidden in a cellar where obscene child abuse took place over many years must leave all right minded people with the feeling that the circumstances were unlikley to be innocent and that it sickening that the investigation has had to be abandoned.
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Why are the States and the Police putting so much time and work on discrediting Lenny Harper when the fact is that abuse has happened and that this fact is not going to go away. Lets start getting justice for the people suffering from the delays of the investigation and start bringing people to justice.
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So honest Lennie spends £4m of our hard earned money, brings massive embarrassment to Jersey and then retires to Scotland – and we have to carry on paying his pension? He should have his pension stopped and he should be brought back to Jersey to answer for the damage he’s done.
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No doubt Senator Syvret will claim it is all a police cover-up.
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Child abuse happened, no one denies this, this child abuse no doubt would have existed in nearly every care home of Britain in that era. You people, that are so convinced the government is against you (rather than simply inept), need to stop holding self-serving people like Harper and Syvret in such high regard.
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It is time to come to a conclusion now, and to let the grass grow over this episode.
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If this latest police statement is proven to be correct lets hope it doesnt detract from the child abuse investigation. Surely this wasnt the intention of the latest release was it?!
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All smells a little fishy to me.
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The cover up is now in full swing, how sad that our goverment has spent so much time discrediting all the evidence given by a very experienced and honest policeman like Lenny Harper
If they had an ounce of decency they could have helped the abused in this awful case so little has been done for them
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I am not surprised by this statement from the Police. As time went on and the evidence that was collected was more vigorously examined it became clearer to me that the evidence (or more accurately, lack of) did not point towards wrong doing. Was Lenny Harper lying? I don’t believe so. He was always saying “we have found such and such which potentially could be….” or “we have to treat this as a potential homocide scene”. The way he phrased some of his press releases could have been less sensational but I don’t believe they were factually wrong and as Police must do he was not ruling out ALL possibilities. We all know that the press want sensational headlines and will report what is said in a way to sell their product (as you have done as I agree with Al comment #1). But what doesn’t get the headlines is the reports where the evidence does not appear to be as significant as it was say 2 months ago. The media want “juicy” headlines and stories so saying “No Murders” is a case in point. No one can say with 100% certainty that no-one has been murdered at HDG but a headline “There is no evidence from the HDG investigation to suggest anyone was murdered” is factually correct but not the juicy headline you want.
I trust you will be unbiased in your reporting of this issue and give Lenny Harper right of reply.
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