Children's home abuse 'went on in Guernsey'

Police in Jersey are to investigate claims that a man was abused in three children’s homes in the Channel Islands, including the notorious “house of horrors” Haut de la Garenne.

Carl Denning said he was physically abused at Haut de la Garenne, a former care home on Jersey at the centre of a major child abuse investigation involving more than 160 people alleging physical and sexual attacks.

The 49-year-old claimed he left the home when he was 11 before suffering more physical abuse at two homes on Guernsey in the 1970s.

Police on Guernsey are expected to look into the claims today.

The allegations at Haut de la Garenne date back to the 1960s and victims have claimed they were physically, sexually and psychologically abused in secret underground chambers known as “punishment rooms”.

Police investigating the home also discovered part of a child’s skull buried in a stairwell on Saturday February 23 and on Monday discovered what could be fragments of bone at the same site.

The fragments have been sent away for tests.

The abuse scandal has been dogged by accusations from Jersey’s former health minister Stuart Syvret that it was covered up and now Mr Denning says the authorities on Guernsey also failed to act.

He told the Guernsey Press and Star: “I feel like the Guernsey authorities really don’t believe what went on.”

A specialist military team has started work inside Haut de la Garenne using hi-tech radar equipment to help police in the search for more bodies.

Police have found the network of secret underground chambers where victims say they were abused.

There are believed to be four “punishment rooms” and so far forensic teams have excavated one.

Officers found a bath and a second item, reportedly shackles, in the cellar as well as a trap door and a chilling message written on the wall saying: “I’ve been bad for years and years.”

Work breaking into the second chamber is expected to start next week.

Victims claim they were kept in solitary confinement in the cellars and were drugged, raped and flogged by both staff and other children at the home.

There are more than 40 suspects in the abuse inquiry and a specialist police team is based at the port in case of any attempt to escape.

The majority of the alleged abuse is understood to have taken place in the 1970s and 1980s.