When a Coconut is not a Coconut

See this link for a summary of the forensic findings in Haut de la Guarenne.

Eton Style?

The SNP conference is on just now and some controversy was generated when Salmond referred to being run by Lord Snootys. As the above video shows, this is completely and totally unjustifed..

John Hemming, Super-Injunctions and Jersey

I reproduce without comment, this entry from Hansard. The date of the debate is Thurs 18th Sept, just two days before the Jimmy Savile allegations came out. You can find out who Andrew Marolia is from this link.

18 Sep 2012 : Column 859
There is a country where there are allegations that crimes by powerful people are not being investigated and prosecuted. A journalist has been refused entry to stop reporting about an issue. The chief of police has been suspended to stop him investigating crimes. Bloggers are being threatened to stop them talking about people. Decisions by the state not to prosecute cannot be challenged, nor is private prosecution allowed. The country is Jersey. The journalist is Leah McGrath Goodman, who is an American. The chief of police was Graham Power. Furthermore, Andrew Marolia, David Minty, David Wherry and Jonathan Sharrock Haworth have, with the assistance of the Jersey Government, obtained a super-injunction against ex-Senator Stuart Syvret—under the Data Protection Act of all things—to prevent from him saying things about them on his blog that are true. Mr Syvret has evidence that criminal offences are being swept under the carpet, but nothing is being done.

A lay judge—known as a jurat—called John le Breton has been allowed to sit as a jurat, even though he was vice-principal of Victoria college when he wrote to the governors in support of Andrew Jervis-Dykes, who ended up getting a jail sentence. Mr le Breton was appointed to judge on a case even though he is a personal friend of a director of the defendant—this is a defamation case where the local politician, Trevor Pitman, has been taking legal action against the local newspaper. The end result in Jersey is that part of these events has been struck from the state’s version of Hansard, and the culture of cover-up continues. Jersey is an independent country, but the UK Government have a responsibility for ensuring good governance in Jersey. The UK is not doing its job properly.

The Ghost of Jimmy Savile is Knocking on the Door

Some years ago, when Mum was still alive, I had an unnerving experience with her. It was during a period where she was having  hallucinations, where she was going into her bedroom and saying that her own mum was there. This is par for the course for Alzheimers. But this occasion was different.

It was just after Christmas and snow had fallen. It was a lovely crisp day and I’d spent a while wrapping Mum up in furs and getting the dog ready for a walk in the park in the snow. This consisted of rubbing oil in between his paws and on the fur of his legs to stop the snow sticking to his feet. We wended our way down to Dunbeth Park which is just a couple of minutes walk away from us and started to walk round. It was virtually deserted at this point – I’m not sure why, but we were two of maybe only four or five people there. Dunbeth Park is in a square and just by the old park keeper’s house there is a bench. We were about a hundred yards away from it, when my mum stopped, gazed straight ahead at the bench and said, ‘Oh, there’s a wee girl with a bonnet on.’

I got out of the park as quickly as I could. Of course, there was no wee girl there; at least, not that my eyes could see. But that bench was no ordinary bench. It was a bench dedicated to a girl called Moira Anderson, who disappeared on a snowy day in Coatbridge and was never found again. The explanation at the time was that she had been snatched away by a lone paedophile, probably in a car. It was only years later that the truth started to emerge much nearer home, thanks to the efforts of a woman called Sandra Brown. She discovered that her father, who stayed in Coatbridge had been involved with Moira Anderson and that he had served a jail term for molesting a baby sitter. She also found evidence of a possible cover up and other people involved.

Moira was never found. Coatbridge was a heavily industrialised town at that point and there were any number of pits and shafts that could have served as a hiding place. But she has not gone away. I’m not sure what my mum saw that day, but I am sure of one thing; Moira Anderson haunts our town and will continue to do so, until the full truth of what happened to her comes out.

So why am I talking about this? Well, Witchdoctor’s recent post has stirred up some of those memories.  She is having strange dreams ever since the Jimmy Savile scandal broke. In particular, Savile’s connection with the Haut de la Gaurenne children’s home in Jersey has been bothering her. In Witchdoctor’s own words, here is a place where people there have been jailed, compensation has been paid, children are said to be unaccounted for, body parts were found and then unfound, two senior police officers who were “outsiders” were sacked, an ex minister of health whistleblew and ended up in jail, and an investigative journalist who wants to write a book about the place is not allowed to enter the UK.  Now Jimmy Savile is involved and already the BBC are trying to steer the discussion away from child abuse and possible murder to a far more right on discussion about sexual harassment at work involving adults.  For once I have been glad of the tabloids who are shouting from the rooftops about this, even although I despise the motive behind it; their obvious glee at catching a rival news outlet in the worst possible kind of scandal. But will they go as far as Jersey? Will it be re-opened?

There is more disquiet going on about the Jimmy Savile case than in the corridors of the BBC. Jimmy Savile didn’t just visit Haut de la Guarenne. He also visited Stoke Mandeville, Broadmoor and Duncroft Approved School for Girls. At all of these places he was allowed to stay overnight.  At Stoke Mandeville he had a flat and Broadmoor he had his own living quarters and a set of keys to the wards. Read that again. He had a set of keys to the wards.

What this means in short is that not only is the BBC facing a can of worms. Children’s homes, the NHS, the prison service and a local authority are all facing scrutiny, because all of them to a greater or lesser extent were complicit in aiding an abuser to abuse. And this is what the government is so afraid of. Digging into Jimmy Savile’s case means digging into all these organisations. And they don’t want to.

In the late nineties in Scotland, a brace of child abuse cases were brought against the Poor Sisters of Nazareth in Aberdeen. People who had stayed at Nazareth House as children accused the nuns of ill-treatment, and physical and mental abuse. They won their case and compensation from the Catholic church and it is a well known case in Scotland. What is less well known is what happened next.  Cameron Fyfe, who were the lawyers in these cases, also had several hundred cases against Barnado’s, Quarriers  and local authorities.  The Scottish executive in particular feared the cases against the local authorities, because of the potentially massive amounts that might be awarded in compensation. Jack McConnell who was First minister at the time, allowed a time bar on cases going back before 1964 and also a 20 year time bar on cases of child abuse in general. So conscious were the government of this, that when Jack McConnell made a speech in 2004  apologising to those who had been abused in children’s homes in Scotland, that he apologised on behalf of the Scottish people rather than the Scottish government, lest it be taken as an admission of legal guilt on the part of the government. The result of this was that these cases never came to trial.

As far as I’m aware, there is no time bar on cases in England. Which means the potential for fall out from the Jimmy Savile cases is huge. And in addition to this, there is the matter of possible murder in Jersey. So far, Jersey has managed see off  senior police officers, a minister of health and an investigative journalist. But will the Jimmy Savile connection finally mean that a proper investigation will take place here?

This does not simply apply to historic cases of abuse of course. For years we have been walking past particularly disturbing statistics from children in care. Take this 2005 report from NHS Hounslow that reports that 41% of girls between 15-17 in care in England are mothers. Note then how it sweeps on to a statement about better sex education. Did anyone ask who was making these girls pregnant? Are we asking? Do we want to know the answer?

One last peculiar twist in the Jimmy Savile saga should be mentioned. Harriet Harman was reported calling for a full enquiry yesterday. You might think there’s nothing unusual in that. But there is. In 1978, Harriet Harman was the legal officer for the National Council of Civil Liberties. Patricia Hewitt was its general secretary and at that point the NCCL was affiliated with both the Paedophile Information Exchange and Paedophile Action for Liberation. Their politics filtered into the NCCL, which at that time called for the age of consent to be lowered, for incest to be decriminalised and for child pornography to be legal unless it could be proved that the subject was harmed. Harriet Harman was involved in particular inputting forward the case for child pornography. It was actually Mary Whitehouse who took up cudgels against the PIE and by the mid 80’s most of their members were in jail. I don’t know who or why Harriet Harman was chosen as the spokesperson on this and I also wonder just how much the NCCL knows as they allowed known paedophiles at their meetings  in the seventies. It is very odd. But another can of worms awaits there.

The ghost of Jimmy Savile is knocking on the door. There is one good thing that can come out of this and that is for all these institutions to face up to the past (and present) and clean up institutional child abuse for once and for all. We should take that chance. It will be unpleasant. It will cost a lot of money. And in Jersey, perhaps something unthinkable lies there, but we should not flinch. If we do this, then perhaps the case of Jimmy Savile will do more good for children in care than the evil he did when he lived. And when the truth is told, perhaps at last the unquiet ghosts of the past can rest in peace.