Haut Garenne Jersey Ritual Abuse Case

ANOTHER WILD GOOSE CHASE
AND MORE PROFLIGACY OF TAXPAYERS MONEY
BY THE HYSTERICAL CHILD SCARE INDUSTRY
When will the madness stop?
 

Haut de La Garenne, the Jersey Satanic Ritual Child Abuse Case Exposed...

By Adrian Michaelson

I recently saw an episode of the comedy drama “Dangerous Davies.” A policeman went to a house where Asian kids had been seen visiting at odd hours. The owner was a pharmacist. Poking round the garden revealed a human skull. Refusing to call in the specialist investigators in order to keep the glory of this career making murder investigation, Dangerous' Inspector orders further digging and unearths a number of human skeletons. The pharmacist is arrested.

It soon comes to light, through the efforts of our hero, Dangerous, that the pharmacist has been giving discrete advice to young Asians on contraception. The skeletons are revealed to be from a cholera plague pit in the middle ages.

No crime, no murder, plenty of hassle for the chap arrested. Huge cost for the public. Still, it's just a comedy drama. Read on........

Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth (SRAM)

A few years ago the western world went through a period of paranoia about Satanic Ritual Child Abuse (SRA). Details on the rest of this site. There are may parallels with the murder accusations we are about to discuss on Jersey.

Haut de la Garenne

In February 2008, the UK, and the world is shocked to hear that hundreds of abuse allegations have been made against the former care home at Haut de la Garenne which became a Youth Hostel in 2003, having closed as a home in 1986. Interestingly, during world war 2 the building was used by occupying German forces.

The first thing to keep in mind is the potential difference between the common understanding of abuse, and the legal definition used to identify “an allegation.” Many practices common in children's homes throughout the UK during this time have been recently defined in law as abuse. “Pinning down” is a good example of this. Remember, it is only 20 years ago that solitary confinement of kids, and corporal punishment were considered acceptable. So it should not come as any surprise, once the story hits the headlines that many examples of “abuse” should surface. Anyone who was there through the 1970's will have stories of abuse to tell.

The real shock came when police said they had found “potential remains of a child” buried under a concrete stairwell at the back of the building.

A media storm followed, along with a £4.5 million police investigation into the potential torture and murder of children at the home.

In November 2008, it was revealed by the police that there was no evidence of any such thing, that there was no murder there, and no murder suspects. Evidence previously offered to the press, fuelling the hysteria was shown to be bogus at best. The press, clearly angry at being deceived about this and looking fools have been quick to turn on the people responsible, often forgetting that it was elements of the press itself which turned claims that fragments of a skull had been found (later proved to be a coconut shell) into a full child's skull within 24 hours of the claim being made.

For posterity, below is a chronology of what occurred.

 

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THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE JERSEY CASE

Column One
What they First Claimed

Column Two
What it actually turned out to be

2006: Former residents of the Haut de la Garenne children's home in Jersey spark a police investigation by alleging abuse whilst resident there. Remember that what constitutes abuse has changed over the years. Corporal punishment was a 'permissible' form of discipline in Children's homes of the 1970s but is of course illegal today.
July 2007: Jersey politician Stuart Syvret makes accusations that children are not being protected in a home on the island. -
22 August 2007: An independent review of Jersey's child protection is agreed by the Jersey government. -
11 September 2007: Jersey Senator Stuart Syvret loses his government job after a vote of no confidence goes against him. -
30 January 2008: A 76 year old man, Gordon Claude Wateridge, 76, of Rue de Maupertuis, St Clement, is charged with 3 child abuse offences on girls under 16 committed between 1969 and 1979 at the former Haut de la Garenne childrens’ home. He was also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm. -
Unknown Date: Somewhere in this period the investigating team meet and decide to take the unusual step of releasing information about any finds to the press before it has been confirmed by laboratory testing.. This is quite unusual as finds are normally confirmed before the press are given details. Some journalists have speculted that this decision was taken to prevent government officials covering up evidence of abuse and killings, should they be found, before the public were aware of them. To my mind, this suggests that the investigation was started with the presumption that serious abuse would be found, rather than with an open mind.
19 February 2008: Jersey police begin to search the former care home at Haut de la Garenne. -
24 February 2008: -

Many pieces of bone were found, most of which were clearly animal bones. Several fragments could have been from humans and were later dated scientifcally to 1470-1670 and 1650-1950.

23 February 2008: Police announce they have found "what appears to be potential remains of a child" buried under concrete in a stairwell at the rear of the building. This is reported to be a fragment of a child's skull. Within a mere 24 hours, the News of the World were referring to it as a skull, and the Observer and Sunday Times called it parts of a child's skeleton. By the end of the month, more mainland press are referring to it as “..the child's skull...”(e.g., but by no means by themselves, The Sun 29th February 2008) It is later revealed to be a piece of coconut shell. In any event, when pictured in the press, it was a tiny fragment which had to be picked up with tweezers, and in no wasy could be described as a “skull.”
25 February 2008: A sniffer dog has been used in the search and has identified what police call "six sites of interest" for investigation.

According to one report, this means the dog had barked in six places.

28 February 2008: Police claim to have made "significant" finds in a cellar understood to be shackles and a shallow concrete bath. A few days later, sniffer dogs identify traces of blood in the bath. The building's cellars have become “secret underground chambers” in much of the press (e.g. the Sun 29th February 2008). The shackles are later shown to be just pieces of metal (possibly a bedspring) and cable supports from the cellars. In November 2008 the police admitted no blood had been found. The cellars are also described as being underfloor spaces, with no access from the building, and which are so cramped they would require an adult to walk bent double, or crawl in them.
4 March 2008: Claims that a number of graves had been found in the grounds of the home were revealed to have been props from teh TV detective series 'Bergerac'. which used to film in the grounds. The producers had made a fake graveyard, but as one of the scenes was a burial, they had dug some of them quite deep. -
9 March 2008: Public concerns become more prominent as a demonstration takes place in St Helier. The protest is about how the authorities have handled the Haut de la Garenne case. -
April 2008: The fragment is reexamined by Dr. Julie Roberts because Oxford University had decided it wasn't bone after all.
30 April 2008: Another man makes a court appearance in an unrelated child abuse case. -
8 May 2008: The “bone fragments” found in February are revealed to be wood, or maybe even coconut by the police. About time too - apparently this had been known by the invetigators for about a month as the fragment had been found too deep in the ground to be from the period they were investigating"
21 May 2008: As the list of suspects increases to 70, police say pieces of bone found at the site "do indicate a homicide or an unexplained death". Some may have been burned. : Tests show that 5 teeth found in the cellar of the home are from at least two children and most likely became detached after death. -
31 May 2008: A 45 year old man is charged with abusing three boys at the home between 1977 and 1980. -
19 June 2008: Police have now found a total of 48 milk teeth at the home. -
8 July 2008: The search moves to an old war bunker near the home as six people have claimed they were abused there. -
14 July 2008: Police claim the six people's claims are corroborated by their finds at the bunker. -
22 July 2008: Claiming to have no confidence in the Jersey enquiry, Austin Mitchell tables a Commons motion calling on the UK government to hold it's own inquiry into the abuse claims. -
31 July 2008: The public are told that the tally of milk teeth reaches 65, and at least 100 bone fragments have now been found, police say remains of at least five children. Searches of the home have uncovered 65 milk teeth and more than 100 bone fragments. “Police say they have evidence the bodies were burned and attempts were made to conceal the bodies in the late 60s to early 70s. “ Daily Telegraph 31st July 2008 These bone fragments are so small as to be almost unclassifiable and scientifically untestable. Those large enough to be tested turned out to be animal bones.
15 August 2008: Gordon Wateridge, now 77, is charged with 16 counts of indecent assault relating to four girls and one boy at Haut de la Garenne, whilst warder in the 1970's. -
7 August 2008: The policeman in charge of the case, Lenny Harper, retires. His replacement is David Warcup. -
26 August 2008: A case is dropped against a man and woman due to 'insufficient evidence'. This is very typical of the way that SRA witch-hunts work. In the commencement of the hysteria suspects are arrested either due to over-zealousness or because of the continued pressure from the British media whose feeding frenzy the police must 'feed' with regular bouts of sensationalism. As the hysteria wears off cases against arrested suspects are then dropped quietly due to 'insufficient evidence' and the persecution eventually tends to focus on one or two 'patsys' who are eventually prosecuted for slight offences, usually unconnected with the original wild allegations, thereby providing the police with a 'get out'.
28 August 2008: The BBC recieves a leaked memo from Lenny Harper claiming the investigation team has been "let down" by lawyers. -
26 September 2008: As criticism mounts against Lenny Harper, Jersey's Chief Minister, Frank Walker, says is no rift with the judiciary. And now, November 2008, we hear, as the senior policeman on Jersey is suspended that :
  • 1 The fragment of skull really was just an old piece of coconut shell
  • 2 The shackles found are really just bits of rusty metal (possibly a bed spring)
  • 3 There was no blood in the cellar, which wasn't a cellar anyway, and the bath hadn't been used since 1920
  • 4 Of 170 pieces of bone found, only 3 were human, and 2 of them dated 1470-1670 and 1650-1950, well before the scope of the allegations police were investigating.
  • 5 The secret underground burial chambers were just holes in the ground

Above was Updated at: December 2008. By August 2009 The Truth Comes Out.

JERSEY SRA CASE BITES THE DUST

"A carer from Haut de la Garenne children's home guilty of indecent assault Gordon Wateridge, a former carer, has been found guilty of indecently assaulting teenagers while he worked at Jersey's Haut de la Garenne children's home in the 1970s."

So That's It? Millions of pounds spent; a Media Circus of sensational claims of serial satanic murders of children in underground cells and all they dredge up is a care worker who inappropriately touched a few teenage girls thirty years ago.
No rape, No Murder, No Torture, No sacrifices, No rituals, No Bodies.

Yet another manifestation of the twenty year old Satan Myth which has now squandered more public money and resources than any hoax in the history of this country. According to SAFF research there has been over five hundred cases of claimed satanic ritual abuse since the late 1980s and not one of them had any substance to it. Yet the police STILL jump to investigate these ridiculous claims every single time a Satan Hunter works up the allegations into another bandwagon. Every single time the child scare industry alleges irrational things the authorities jump to pacify them. Worse; the police are now working in tandem with the Satan Hunters in social work and the therapy industry to create a 'demonology' of ritual abuse based not on facts but on the unproven conclusions put forward by believers in the myth based on cases which failed. This makes further false cases absolutely inevitable.

Child-Abuse shouldn't happen, it's awful and occasionally it can have serious long-term psychological repercussions but somebody has to break the cycle of moral blackmail and stand up to say that child-abusers are NOT endemic in the UK and being sexually abused does not stigmatise a person for the rest of their lives or make them unable to cope. Like those who survived the even worse horrors of the Nazi concentration camps who went on to make a fruitful life for themselves and bring up sane, balanced offspring who have in turn contributed to our society, people can get over horrible experiences if they are empowered to do so.

Yet by stigmatising any and every instance of sexual abuse, even the very minor ones, as an irreversible trauma it leaves the poor victim unable to live a normal life. That does not help them, it makes their position WORSE not better. Child abuse is awful but the official approach is completely lacking in a sense of proportion. let's be clear about it. A child being sexually abused is not worse than it being mutilated by an improvised explosive device in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. It is not worse than children starving to death in front of our eyes in Darfur whilst our government wrings its hands in helplessness. It is not worse than watching a child die from cancer. And, let's face it, it is not worse than a paedophile being beaten to death by a mob after he is discovered living in their locality.

The Child Scare industry is permanently promoting hysteria in order to gain funding to pay their stonking wages and keep therapists in clover for developing loony treatments which makes matters worse. It's a gravy-train.

With its chain of myths (the Incest Myth, The Uncle-John Myth, The Abused-will-Abuse-Others Myth, The Paedophile Rings myth, The recent Mother-Abuse myth and the one that started it all, The Satanic Ritual Child Abuse Myth, the Child Scare Industry has stampeded the minds of the masses in this country to fear child abuse everywhere when it is actually miniscule in comparison with other risks children run ( e.g. the risk of being run down in the road).

It's all down to a sense of proportion. Yes incest does happen and should be stopped but it happens very rarely. The abuse of children by Uncle-Johns happens, but it happens very rarely. The abuse of children by paedophile rings is an even rarer happening; and I suppose somewhere there will be a Mother who sexually abuses her kids but if anyone thinks that this is a regular occurrence and not an abberation they want their heads examining. As for the idea of a world-wide network of Satanists who are intent on impregnating children and then sacrificing babies and eating them -well anyone who believes that, after twenty years of failed cases, like the one in Jersey above, has to be either irrational...... or a member of the Child Scare Industry who is on to a good thing.

Ends:

How to Make a Child Abuse Scare (And then there were none...........)

The Aftermath of The Jersey SRA Case by Adrian Michaelson

RECIPE FOR SCAREMONGERING:

What you need are plenty of “victims”, claims of an organised child abuse ring including the rich and powerful, an institutional location with a history of abuse to spice the pot, and a crusading policeman who believes it could be the crime of the century......Oh, and a lot of cash. In this case, £20 million seemed a trifle.

So, given that only one conviction of a single care worker for the lowly crime of indecent assault has resulted from the Haute De La Garenne sex ring investigation on Jersey, how come we were treated to acres of coverage of the excavation of the home? Why were we told bodies, blood, shackles, teeth, and a child's skull had been found?

Why was so much cash spent on an investigation labelled

'... one of the worst policing fiascos of modern times, and those responsible need to be called to account.'

by Mick Gradwell  the detective who took over the investigation?

Let's have a quick look at what happened.

In 2006, former residents of the home made allegations of abuse experienced whilst living there decades previously. An investigation began.

In November 2007, the Jersey police announced that they now had 60 potential victims. From the police press release, it appears that these victims had come forward in response to appeals, many through a UK based helpline managed by the NSPCC. This is known as 'trawling'. Whenever any historical claims of abuse are made by victims the police trawl through all residents or inmates who attended the institution from years back. Sometimes to ensure wide coverage they have actually taken out display anouncements in local newspapers advertising for anyone affected to contact them. In past cases it has been shown that this can produce hundreds of complainants most of whom can then qualify to make claims for damages from the governments' Crime Fund.

Readers of this site will be aware that the NSPCC has a history of involvement in sensational cases where massive amounts of child abuse abuse is claimed but which the record shows result in very few actual proven cases. The Satanic Abuse Scare claims widely supported by the NSPCC in the 1990's are a case in point. As is the Children's Homes in North Wales investigation where 365 people initially faced allegations yet only 4 were eventually found to have been guilty).

The policeman in charge of the case said that one of the witnesses claimed to have seen residents being chased along corridors and leaping through a window, never to be seen again, and children hanging from trees in the garden. According to the press, this witness was later found to have alcohol problems and a history of psychotic fantasy. None of the witness's claims were true yet they were followed up as though true by the police.

So already we are seeing the same pattern on Jersey as we have seen in so many other cases, particularly those related to Satanic Ritual Abuse claims. Interested groups who are convinced that their worst fears have happened go looking for victims. Due to an historic redefinition of what abuse means (many practices that were common and officially approved in childrens homes just a few years ago are considered abusive now), and the fact that various groups are trawling to find them, “victims” cannot but appear.

The numbers of claimed victims are used to confirm the worst fears and investigations move up a notch and increased resources are poured into the case.

So, the grounds of the former home was dug up, an unlicensed sniffer dog and handler (who had previously made his name on the Madelein McCann case) was employed at a cost of over 90,000 (yes folks that's ninety thousand pounds for one dog and one man) to help determine where the bodies were, and the press were treated to a lot of very sensational briefings.

What really made this case take off in the public arena was the claim that a child's skull had been found. What had actually been found was a small piece of material which was eventually pronounced after scientific analysis to be a piece of wood, most probably a shard of coconut!

But the police briefed the press this way:

“what appears to be potential remains of a child have been recovered.”


and then the whole thing took off. The press had a field day with the coverage with this tiny fragment of then unconfirmed material which somehow turned into “..a child's skull,” and even “ parts of a child's skeleton,” and many more excesses. The press coverage becomes hysterical. Cellars become “underground chambers” , a twisted rusty bedspring becomes “shackles” .

With the eyes of the world on Jersey the case became a cause celebre to show the outside world that the British police would spare nothing to counteract the epidemic of child abuse. Costs for the investigation soared and included expensive meets at highly fashionable 50.00 a head London restaurants; Unnecessary stays in first class hotels and many other excesses. The public spectacle rolled on and observers were agog. £20 million later, and only one conviction for relatively minor (compared to the overall allegations) abuse has occurred. And this person had been arrested before all the digging took place! The Daily Mail gives an example of the sort of thing that happened behind the scenes to keep the story rolling:

“On May 2, Harper [the lead investigator] had also emailed three senior Jersey officials saying he now had proof that a second child had been buried at Haut de la Garenne: 'The bone fragments are from the skull of a child... The expert's initial findings are that the child died fairly recently - confirmation will mean that a homicide inquiry will have to [be] launched.' Last week, Harper and his supporter Syvret claimed this email was tampered with. But his former secretary, Vickie Ellis, has said in a police statement that she sent it exactly as he dictated it.” [Mail Online 4th October 2009]

Is this a case of the police “sexing up” the evidence to justify the now horrendous cost? The Magic £90,000.00 Sniffer Dog barked at a piece of coconut shell and the police ran with it?

Of course, with the police making these types of claims, we can see why the press bit again and again, yet few, if any showed any restraint in their reporting despite the press briefings being carefully worded so that the police could later claim they never said a murder had been committed. And more importantly only the Daily Mail has had the guts to report the actual conclusion to this story - all the other 'quality' British newspapers have left their readers with the untrue horrible first impressions they gave them about child murder taking place at Haute de la Garenne. The British Media NEVER apologise for getting it wrong.

In the end, the digging, the forensics, the press interest, the NSPCC helpline, all produced little but a rise in the hysteria which is grist to the mill of the British Child Scare Industry, but at least we now appear to have unearthed their standard formula for starting a child abuse scare and fooling millions of British people into thinking child abuse is endemic.

Of course we TOLD YOU THIS WOULD BE THE CASE when these horrifying allegations were first muted. We have been right in every such case. Not one but DOZENS of them throughout the past twenty years. This child-abuse witch-hunt has been going on for DECADES. It has been perpetrated repetitively by those in the vanguard of the Child Scare Industry to sieze more funding and more political influence. They say they need it to protect children. But we can't find any children who have been protected by the SRA myth nor the other sub-myths spawned by it. Surely the British Public cannot be so dim that they are going to continually allow these people to pull the wool over their eyes?

Ends:


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