Man held in Jersey child abuse probe
A 68-year-old man was arrested in Jersey today in connection with the island’s ongoing investigation into historical child abuse.
Jersey police said the man, who has not been named, is helping with their inquiries into a number of rapes and indecent assaults.
One of Britain’s biggest ever abuse investigations is under way on the island, centring on the former children’s home, Haut de la Garenne, where police have found bone fragments and bloody items in underground “punishment rooms”.
More than 100 people have claimed they were abused since the 1960s at the home, which closed in 1986.
Yesterday Jersey police said that on Friday two anthropologists and two archaeologists would begin the detailed excavation of cellar rooms three and four, where bone fragments and teeth were found.
The bones have been delivered to the UK to ascertain their origin, and the teeth will follow this week.
Fragments of a child’s skull were found in February, buried under a stairwell.
Tests on the skull were unable to identify the child but revealed that the bone was placed at that location no earlier than the 1920s.
Some of the victims claim they were kept in solitary confinement and attacked in secret underground chambers.
In four underground rooms, police have found a number of items, including shackles and a bath, which they say corroborate claims from victims.
So far only one man has been charged in connection with the abuse inquiry, which focuses on Haut de la Garenne but involves other care homes on Jersey.
Gordon Claude Wateridge is charged with three offences of indecent assault on girls under 16 between 1969 and 1979 when he was warder at the home.
The 76-year-old is on conditional bail and will next appear in court on May 12 at 10am.
Wateridge, who is originally from Surrey in the UK, has not entered a plea.
There are more than 40 suspects in the inquiry as a whole. Haut de la Garenne closed as a children’s home in 1986.
