Remains of more than one child found at Jersey home
Detectives investigating allegations of abuse at a former Jersey children’s home said new tests had proved “beyond doubt” that the remains of more than one child had been found.
Expert examination of five teeth unearthed in a cellar at Haut de la Garenne over the last week revealed that most had come out after death and from at least two sources.
Police have now recovered a total of 10 teeth and at least 30 charred human bone fragments, indicating that homicide had taken place with the victims’ bodies possibly cremated in a fireplace.
Forensic tests on the latest dental finds revealed that most were “very unlikely to have come our naturally before death,” a police statement read.
It added: “Additionally, there were two teeth which were the same in the five, which means that beyond doubt there were teeth from at least two children.”
It confirms earlier tests completed on the first five teeth discovered in the underground chamber.
The context of the finds suggests that the teeth were put in the cellar after the 1940s but detectives have yet to conclude how or why they came to be there.
“Once again though, we must have concerns at the fact that in a children’s home where we have allegations of awful abuse, we are finding only the remains of children and not adults,” police on the island said.
Of the bone fragments unearthed, tests have found that some were cut while others burnt.
Speaking earlier this month, deputy chief officer Lenny Harper, who is in charge of the investigation, said: “A lot of bones appear to have some degree of burning to them, a number were found in and around where we believe was a fireplace in the cellar area.”
Tests to age the suspected victims have so far been inconclusive, with estimates ranging from pre-Second World War to as recently as the 1970s and 1980s, police have said.
But if it emerged that they were from the 1950s onwards, officers would launch a homicide inquiry, Mr Harper has indicated.
Haut de la Garenne became the centre of an historic abuse inquiry in February after the discovery of what was initially believed to be part of a child’s skull but was later thought to be wood or part of a coconut.
Following the find, scores of people came forward claiming they were abused at the home. Some talked of underground punishment rooms where they said they were drugged, raped and beaten.
Forensic teams subsequently uncovered a network of four secret underground chambers at the site where they found the teeth and bone fragments.
In other chambers, officers also found shackles, a blood-stained bath and the haunting message “I’ve been bad for years and years” scrawled on a wooden post.
Police have said there are more than 40 suspects, although so far only one man has been arrested in connection with alleged child abuse at Haut de la Garenne. A second man has also been arrested as part of the wider abuse inquiry.
