Jersey home children 'were frozen with fear'

A former worker at the Jersey care home at the centre of a child abuse scandal told how she saw children “frozen with fear”.

Excavation work has been going on at Haut de la Garenne since a child’s skull was found under a floor in a stairwell in the north west corner of the building last Saturday.

Christine Bowker said she encountered a “wall of silence” at the home.

She worked there as a volunteer in the early 1970s before leaving due to concerns at the conduct of some of the staff.

Ms Bowker told BBC News 24 that some of the workers were “ice cold”.

She said: “They had no civil contact with me whatsoever, and watched me very carefully with the children.

“And if the children relaxed at all or responded to my affection they glared at the children and they glared at me, then the children just went back into their shells.”

She described some staff as “very rigid and very controlled”.

Since the grisly discovery the investigation has grown dramatically with 70 people coming forward in the last week claiming they were abused.

There are now more than 160 victims involved and 40 suspects.

The allegations focus on the 1970s and 1980s and some date back more than 40 years.

Asked if there was any sign of abuse, Ms Bowker said: “No I didn’t see anything like that…”

She said she had worked with children all over the world since then, “but these children were absolutely ice cold and frozen with fear”.

She said she was “in total shock” the allegations were emerging now.

“When I left…and I left in distress and abuse I received from some of the staff…I couldn’t get anybody to listen to the problem.

“Nobody would listen. There was just a wall of silence.”

She continued: “I mentioned it to some of the people in Jersey. Everybody covered everything.

“The attitude was really nice people managed by the state, we get decent people to run things.”

Asked if the children were frightened, she said: “The children were frightened, yes.”

She continued: “I didn’t say anything to the staff because I knew something was going on which I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

During the inquiry police have also discovered secret underground chambers which victims described as “punishment rooms”.

So far one has been excavated revealing what detectives said were two “significant finds” – reportedly shackles and a bath.

Search teams have confirmed there is a second bricked up chamber and are investigating reports there are two more next to that.

A police spokesman said earlier there was a scaled-down operation at the site today, with some officers carrying out basic work but the forensic teams would not be on site.

“Today will be a break for them,” he said. “They have been working constantly since last weekend.

“We shall have a couple of officers tidying up the site and that’s about it.”

The forensic teams have excavated one bricked up chamber which is where former residents have said they were kept in solitary confinement, raped and beaten.

Deputy police chief Lenny Harper said: “We know there is another chamber next to the one we’re working in, we suspect there might be two more running off it.”

Police have also found an opening in the ground floor above the first cellar, which victims described as a trap door to the room.

Yesterday Mr Harper gave a “stark” warning to anyone looking to intimidate victims after one was targeted by a former care worker.

He warned anyone considering approaching witnesses or victims that police would deal with it as a “serious criminal offence”.

He would not confirm or deny reports that the person said to have been approached was a resident in the home in the 1960s and living in the UK.

He said: “We will not tolerate it. We know that it has happened in the last 36 hours, we are dealing with it.”