HISTORICAL abuse allegations at the Greenfields children’s home dominated a press conference given by the Howard League for Penal Reform yesterday afternoon.

During the delivery of the organisation’s report into Jersey’s youth justice system, members of the audience – which included States Members – repeatedly looked for assurances over the welfare of children in the Island.
Ministers listened to the Howard League team say that they were ‘shocked’ to hear from residents of the homes who said that they suffered abuse in the past.

They were also told about the failures of the ‘unlawful’ Grand Prix system – in which a solitary-confinement method was allegedly used to counter bad behaviour. But the prison reform charity has said that there is no evidence that children are at risk today in the children’s remand home.

During the press conference the author of the report, Lynne Ravenscroft, a former UK Magistrate, said that they had interviewed four former residents of Greenfields. ‘I was very shocked to hear what I heard and I found it very difficult not to believe it,’ she told the press conference.