The Jersey children's home story .. "Former Police Chief to be Witness"

ISLAND social workers are having to juggle almost twice the number of childcare cases recommended following the death in the UK of Victoria Climbié.
The JEP has learned that Children’s Services are so short-staffed that each officer is dealing with an average of 20 cases – even though Lord Laming, who led an inquiry into failings by Haringey Social Services following the eight-year-old’s murder, concluded that individual caseloads should be capped at 12.
Senior figures in the Health and Social Services Department said that they would need an extra ten staff to meet the target, but stressed that the system was still working well. Health chief executive Mike Pollard (pictured) said: ‘Providing social services in a small community is likely to be more successful because there is a very close working relationship between the many agencies, like the police and Hospital staff, who work together to keep children safe and far from harm. Providing services in a small island like Jersey also means that it is far harder for families to slip through the net.’
However, it is understood that recruitment is becoming harder and harder in the wake of both the Haut de la Garenne inquiry and Senator Stuart Syvret’s past criticisms of the service. It is also now much harder to recruit qualified social workers to the Island because UK pay levels have now caught up with Jersey’s and restrictive housing laws make the Island an unappealing option (from thisisjersey)

Abuse: Minister silent on staff involvement



By Ramsay Cudlipp
THE Education Minister refused to reveal in the States yesterday if any of his department’s employees were currently under investigation by the police for child abuse allegations.
Senator Mike Vibert (pictured) said that he was not in a position to answer the question from Senator Stuart Syvret because of a conflict with the ongoing child abuse inquiry.
But Senator Syvret said that the response received to his question was ‘completely inadequate’ and stated that there was ‘no reason’ why the Assembly should not know if any employees were under investigation. ‘This is a matter of very significant public interest,’ he said. ‘There is simply no reason why the minister will not give the figures. Will he give them?’
Senator Vibert said that as an employer, it was States policy not to divulge individual information on employees. He added that he had checked with the police and was happy that his answer was entirely proper and accurate. (from thisisjersey)

That's a yes, one must assume.

looks very much like the Police run the island.....

The chief constable of Wiltshire is to lead a discipline inquiry into the conduct of the chief officer of Jersey police.
Brian Moore will look at the conduct of Graham Power over the investigation of alleged abuse at the former Haut de la Garenne children's home.
It comes as Sussex Police have begun investigating how a report by Mr Power's former deputy was leaked.
The report was published on the blog of Senator Stuart Syvret.
The separate investigations are both linked to the former Haut de la Garenne children's home.
It hit the headlines in February when police found what they believed to be part of a child's skull and began a murder investigation.
Scores of people then came forward saying they had been abused at the home between the early 1960s and 1986, leading to a number of people being charged by police.
Correct procedure
But the piece of suspected skull later turned out to be a piece of coconut, and detectives found no-one had been murdered.
The plan to investigate Mr Power, who is suspended from duty, was discussed in Jersey's State Assembly on Tuesday and Wiltshire Police have now confirmed the inquiry will be led by Mr Moore.
In November Jersey's government criticised the £4.5m police investigation into the case and ministers suspended Mr Power.

Graham Power was suspended last month

Mr Power said his suspension had not followed correct procedure, a claim rejected by the home affairs minister Andrew Lewis.
Mr Lewis told BBC News procedures had been followed "to the letter".
Meanwhile, the investigation into the leak of the report produced by former Deputy Chief Officer Lenny Harper has been ordered by the post's current occupant, David Warcup.
Mr Harper's report concerned the collapse of prosecution proceedings against certain suspects and was intended for the chief officer and the attorney general. It later appeared on Senator Syvret's blog.
Sussex Police say they want to speak to Senator Syvret as a witness, but he has so far declined to offer assistance. (from thisisjersey)

AN independent review could be held into the suspended Police Chief’s claims that he is the victim of a ‘blatant abuse of political power’.
St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft has submitted a proposition to the Bailiff calling for a ‘compliance check’ into the way former Home Affairs Minister Andrew Lewis carried out the suspension of Graham Power. Mr Power has claimed that his suspension was neither proportionate nor carried out properly.
Mr Crowcroft wants the proposition, which calls for new Home Affairs Minister Ian Le Marquand to commission the review, to be lodged for debate early in the New Year. But any debate would have to be carried out in camera, like the brief States debate into the suspension that was held earlier this month.
Mr Power, pictured, was suspended from duty on full pay on 12 November after the States of Jersey Police announced that there was no evidence to back up claims of child murder at Haut de la Garenne. (from thisisjersey)

LENNY Harper has agreed to be a witness for Stuart Syvret in the Senator’s High Court bid to prove that UK judges should be appointed to handle Jersey’s historical child abuse prosecutions.
The former police chief has also made an official complaint against the officers now leading the abuse inquiry. He claims that they ‘grossly’ misrepresented his case to the media. Senator Syvret has asked the former deputy police chief to become involved in a move by him and MP John Hemming to get Justice Minister Jack Straw to appoint UK judges and prosecutors to deal with cases in the abuse inquiry.
Asked why he had asked Mr Harper to give evidence, Senator Syvret said: ‘Because we have a common interest in seeing justice being done.’ As well as agreeing to give evidence in what is likely to be an initial hearing in the High Court in mid-January to consider if there is a case to answer, Mr Harper is also mounting his own defence to criticism of the way in which he handled the child abuse inquiry.
This week, Mr Harper lodged a formal complaint with the Jersey Police Complaints Authority about comments made by his successor as deputy police chief, David Warcup, and the officer now leading the inquiry, Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell. At a recent press conference, they said that there was no evidence of child murders having taken place at Haut de la Garenne.
Retired deputy police chief Lenny Harper, giving a press conference at Haut de la Garenne (from thisisjersey)

It's funny how Syvret claims Harper shares his interest in wanting to see justice done; when I've spoken to Harper in the past he categorically stated that justice was not his main goal: keeping the peace was.

Harper's an incompetent, his arrogance and incompetence have been outed and now he wants to cause trouble to make it appear like somebody else is acting inappropriately, to take the heat off him. (let's not forget he still has an outstanding complaint investigation against him)

I had hoped that the damage Harper was doing to the island while employed would've ceased once he retired and left the island to enjoy life living of the vast savings of years on his over-inflated salary.

I hope the Police Complaints consider his complaint as seriously and thoroughly as he took complaints against officers while he was in office... no actually I don't; I hope they actually do a proper and professional job and then tell him there's no complaint to answer.

The Constable of St Helier has called for a review over the suspension of Jersey's chief police officer.
Simon Crowcoft wants reassurances that correct procedures were followed when Graham Power was suspended last month.
His suspension came after it emerged information previously released over a child abuse inquiry was inaccurate.
A new investigating team looking into claims of abuse at former children's home Haut de la Garenne, revealed no-one had been murdered there.
Mr Crowcoft wants a qualified body to do what is called a compliance check over the suspension of Mr Power.
Employment relations
He argues any employee of the States should expect complaints against them to be dealt with correctly.
And he says a review should reassure all staff working for the government that the States will not disregard the principles of good employment relations.
The constable says a States debate on the subject would have to be in private in accordance with the law.
Former Home Affairs Minister Deputy Andrew Lewis, who suspended the police chief, says the procedure was followed to the letter.
Mr Power has denied any wrongdoing. (from BBC News)

E-mails were leaked, says Harper



By Diane Simon
FORMER deputy police chief Lenny Harper has made formal complaints to the police against former Chief Minister Frank Walker and Senator Jimmy Perchard, alleging that they leaked confidential e-mails about the abuse inquiry to a journalist and newspaper.
However, Mr Walker has strongly denied that claim — and the journalist named by Mr Harper, David Rose of the Mail on Sunday, has also said that the claims are false. Senator Perchard is out of the Island and unavailable for comment. Mr Harper, pictured, is alleging that Mr Rose told police chief Graham Power during a phone call that he had a confidential e-mail leaked to him by Senator Perchard.
He is also alleging that the Mail on Sunday told him that the Chief Minister’s office leaked a confidential e-mail to them in which he updated Senator Walker on the anthropologist’s findings in the UK on items found during the excavation at Haut de la Garenne. However, Mr Rose told the JEP that he had never been leaked an e-mail by Mr Walker, Senator Perchard, States chief executive Bill Ogley or former Home Affairs Minister Wendy Kinnard. ‘I have never spoken to Mr Power either,’ Mr Rose said.
Mr Harper told the JEP that he had received a letter from the States police ‘refusing to investigate the allegations.’ Asked about Mr Harper’s allegations, Mr Walker said that they were totally untrue. (from thisisjersey)

So; Sen. Perchard, Mr Walker (former CM) and Mr Rose are all liars... or Mr Harper just trying to smear all and sundry to draw attention away from his own inadequacies?

The letter he 'claims' to have received; funny how he didn't think to actually show it to the press, rather than claim it existed; especially when the very nature of his complaint and the several complaints against him relate to the lack of claimed evidence.

LENNY Harper came under fire in an interview on Radio 4 yesterday about the way he handled the historical child abuse inquiry.
But the former deputy police chief continued to defend his tactics, claiming that the willingness of victims to co-operate might have been affected if he had revealed earlier that there were doubts about whether ‘human remains’ had really been found at Haut de la Garenne.
He feared political attacks which might have deterred witnesses, listeners were told. By the end of the interview on the programme ‘Taking a Stand’, in which reporter Fergal Keane grilled Mr Harper about his publicity me-thods, he said that Mr Harper was looking ‘like a man under strain pinned to the ground’.
Mr Harper told him that he had just undergone an interview with a very experienced interrogator, and that it had not been very pleasant to be subjected to lies about himself in the national media from people he had respected.(from thisisjersey)

GD wrote:...But the former deputy police chief continued to defend his tactics, claiming that the willingness of victims to co-operate might have been affected if he had revealed earlier that there were doubts about whether ‘human remains’ had really been found at Haut de la Garenne...

Surely he means 'complainants' rather than 'victims', or had he already made his mind up about whether people were innocent or guilty even before he hadn't really, but was pretending to have, found evidence?

"Surely he means 'complainants' rather than 'victims', or had he already made his mind up about whether people were innocent or guilty even before he hadn't really, but was pretending to have, found evidence?"


No victims , or in some cases survivors, is the appropriate term. In many cases they are not bringing a complaint, they are simply making witness statements to the police about the abuse that did happen either to themselves or to others while in care. You seem to be imputing that it is the victims and survivors where are at fault. It is not. That people in care have been abused does not presume anything about the guilt or otherwise of any specific accused individual until a trial.

Okay, he means 'witness', rather than 'complainant' or 'victim'.

I'm not claiming that any victim is at fault, just that their claims are not yet proven.

And I'm specifically picking up on Harper's selected use of 'victim' when he should say 'possible victim' or 'alleged victim', when it's this style of pedantic and sensationalist language by him that has caused this investigation to fall into such chaotic disrepute.

You can't allege that someone is a victim, despite what the BBC hacks say on their news reports.

Noun 1. allegation - (law) a formal accusation against somebody (often in a court of law)

Spirit wrote:You can't allege that someone is a victim, despite what the BBC hacks say on their news reports.

Noun 1. allegation - (law) a formal accusation against somebody (often in a court of law)

You use the unsorced quote above, which seems to be (or it perhaps it's just coincidence that it's identical) from Princeton University's WordNet online dictionary.

But you're choosing to use the noun, as defined for use as a legal term.

You can use it as I suggested as an adjective:

Adjective: alleged (declared but not proved)

Also quoted from Princeton Universtiy's WordNet online dictionary.