Specialists scour Jersey 'punishment rooms'

Police tonight released the first pictures of their forensic teams at work in the underground chambers at the former Jersey care home where it is claimed children were abused.

Specialist Tim Sheppard is pictured at work in the cellar which has been concealed beneath Haut de la Garenne for years.

Police have been excavating the chamber for a fortnight and are combing it for evidence.

Once every inch has been examined they will break into an adjoining underground room which police believe is the second of a network of four secret cells.

More than 160 former residents at the home have come forward to tell investigators of horrific abuse they claim they suffered in the secret cellars at the care home.

They call them the “punishment rooms” where they say they were drugged, raped and flogged.

Shackles were reportedly found in the first cellar along with a chilling message on one wall: “I’ve been bad for years and years”.

Yesterday, tiny specks of blood were found on a concrete bath in the cellar. Police are now testing the samples in a bid to trace and date them.