"State Sponsored Paedophilia?"

Not for the first time, retired Former Jersey Chief Police Officer Graham Power QPM, has described the allegations of Child Abuse committed in Jersey's State run institutions as "State Sponsored Paedophilia."

How else can it be described? Children were abused for decades in these institutions and nobody ever reported it? 

Following our previous POSTING we have had contact with the former Chief Police Officer and offer this "exclusive" statement on his reaction and thoughts concerning the recent publication of the Report by Jersey's Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Sub Panel. (Parliamentary Select Committee). 

Statement released by Graham Power QPM, retired Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police following the publication of a report by the Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel entitled “Issues surrounding the review of financial management of Operation Rectangle.”

The recently published report by the Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel into Issues surrounding the review of the financial management of Operation Rectangle (the Jersey Historic Child Abuse Enquiry) is a thorough and well researched piece of work.   It should be essential reading for anyone interested in the operation of Jersey’s Government and the wider issues arising from the investigation of allegations concerning the systematic abuse of vulnerable children who were in the care of States of Jersey Establishments in recent decades.   While the report should be read in its entirety there are some findings which, from my perspective, are particularly noteworthy. The first is that the Scrutiny Panel have rightly pointed out that the original review of the financial management of the abuse investigation was commissioned, given terms of reference, funded, overseen and heavily influenced by people who had a clear personal interest in the outcome.   This now appears to be beyond dispute. In my view the same could be said of other allegedly “independent” reports relating to the abuse enquiry which have been commissioned and publicised by Jersey’s Home Affairs Department over recent years.

Secondly, the Panel rightly raises the issue of how it came to be that a legitimate and proper public debate about the sexual and physical abuse of small children was diverted into an argument about the cost of meals in a London restaurant, and why so many Jersey establishment figures appeared to support this change of agenda.   It is not without irony that this diversionary tactic appeared to be enthusiastically driven by a Home Affairs Department who had themselves authorised expenditure of over £38,000 on “meals and entertainment” (1) by Wiltshire officers engaged in the subsequently abandoned disciplinary enquiry into the management of the abuse investigation.   We should not hold our breath while awaiting an “independent” enquiry into that particular use of public funds.

Finally, the Scrutiny Panel are to be commended for using their powers to take the timely action of obtaining a full copy of my 62,000 word statement to the Wiltshire Investigation.   The statement is a detailed and unrestrained account of the early part of the abuse enquiry from the perspective of the Chief Officer of the Force. If nothing else, it is a piece of the Island’s history and its continued suppression by the Jersey Government, in spite of repeated promises that it would be released, is one of many examples of the biased and selective use of information which have characterised Ministers conduct in this matter.

The allegations handled by the Force under my command during 2007 and 2008 involved what was effectively State Sponsored Paedophilia and its concealment over decades by individuals in positions of authority.   Not all of the allegations were supported by the evidence, but many plainly were, and the accounts of the victims remain as a harrowing record of what can occur when those in public office fail to seek out and to confront the truth.   If I have not said it enough then I say it again, the most important people in this whole story are the victims of abuse.   It is their plight and their memories which need to be the subject of candid and public debate at the highest level. The attempts to divert this debate into discussions concerning the trivia of expense claims, is a scandal of which all involved should be thoroughly ashamed.

                                                            Graham Power

                                                            Retired Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police.

13^th November 2011.

 (1) Details of the costs of the Wiltshire Investigation up to May 2010 were given in a written answer in the States on 22^nd June 2010.   Ref 1240/5(5459).

If it's about money then let's look at how the Wiltshire Constabulary were paid so much for a bungled investigation. But as Mr Power quite rightly points out this should never have turned into how much a meal cost in a London restaurant, it's about decades of Child Abuse that seemingly flourished in Jersey "care" homes. How was it able to be kept so quiet for so long? Just what is the extent of it? Has the surface only just been scratched? Why was the Child Abuse Enquiry shut down by DAVID WARCUP? With all these questions un-answered how is anybody supposed to trust the Jersey authorities?

It's about (or should be) the victims and survivors of Child Abuse. Who's going to speak up and represent them? "The attempts to divert this debate into discussions concerning the trivia of expense claims, is a scandal of which all involved should be thoroughly ashamed."