GOING, GOING, GONE !

Graham Power

If you already feel saturated by the Jersey scene, just skip this posting. If, like me, you find it rivals Dungeons and Dragons, read on.

I have been puzzling over both the fact and the timing of Graham Power's suspension and I just can't make sense of it. It is not quite keeping me awake at night, but like that final elusive word in a big crossword, is not helping me to get to sleep either.

So I have tried below to put some of my confused thoughts on paper in the hope that this would crystalise them, but I am still as puzzled as ever.

Person 737

One commentator is convinced that the suspension was brought about to stymie the imminent arrest of the well known influential islander currently identified as “737” in the documents published by the Jersey Inquiry. This does not make sense to me.

Evidence to the current inquiry suggests that Power was taking a very hands off approach to Operation Rectangle. He had almost fully handed over the running of the inquiry to his deputy, and successor designate, David Warcup and the SIO was Mick Gradwell who had replaced Lenny Harper. Both of these officers have complained about Power's reluctance to involve himself in Operation Rectangle at that stage.

So getting rid of Power would not have affected any such arrest which he was presumably not pushing for in the first place. In the event, the suspect remained on Gradwell's task list for interview under caution in the first week of December 2008, even after Power's suspension in early November. Of course, we don't know if 737 was actually interviewed, just that the paper intention was still there after Power's suspension.

Abuse of Process

An alternative suggestion is that Lenny Harper's allegedly exaggerated, and uncorrected, revelations about HDLG, along with their further amplification by the press, risked having some upcoming trials dismissed in the face of a likely plea of abuse of process by the defence lawyers.

The thinking here seems to be that the uncorrected sensationalism (murders etc.) surrounding Operation Rectangle was giving rise to (i) hostile hysteria, and (ii) a feeling that the police were “rushing to judgement” and bringing unjustifiable charges. Either or both of these being factors which could prejudice a fair trial,

Warcup and Gradwell, following legal advice, were adamant that these “revelations” had to be publicly corrected before the trials. To that end they organised a press conferencee, against Power's advice, to correct matters and incidentally rubbish much of Operation Rectangle. Power claims that he had no problem with the original script he was shown for the press conference but that what was said at the actual press conference itself flew in the face of what he had been shown.

He could therefore be presumed to be very annoyed at the outcome. But what action could he have taken? What could he have done that would require his suspension to stop him doing it?

So I'm not really convinced by that explanation either.


The Met Report

Then there is the “Met Report” in which the London Met were supposed to have severely criticised the running of Operation Rectangle and in particular the actions of Harper and Power. As I recall that “report” had not been received until after the initial drafting of the letters suspending Power, though Gradwell's own written report and Warcup's views would have been available at the time.

However, the terms of the Met inquiry precluded its use for any disciplinary purpose. Any such use would put the whole system of non-disciplinary peer inspection in jeopardy throughout the entire UK police force.

So, the Met "report" was not available when the plot was hatched and it seems to have been hastily seized on when it arrived to bolster complaints against Power.

For clarity here it should be said that this was not a final report, rather a very initial draft, that the Met subsequently said did not criticise Harper or Power. In fact it was subsequently withdrawn by a Met which was very annoyed at the use to which it had been put.

Mystery

So the mystery of Power's suspension and it's timing remains.

Clearly the politicians, and some of his own immediate subordinates, wanted rid of him. The prime movers had even organised the resignation of the then Home Affairs Minister, Wendy Kinnard, and replaced her with a more pliable alternative, Andrew Lewis, to make sure Power got ditched.

But why? He was apparently operating in a very hands off way, having turned almost everything over to his successor, David Warcup. He says himself that he would have gone quietly at that time if he has been asked politely to retire. It was only the method of his dispatch that got his back up.

The only advantage, for the administration, of suspension over retirement or dismissal, was that it kept Power on the books and limited the extent to which he could go public with any grievances. Dismissal, in any case, would have involved getting parliamentary approval and God knows what might have come out in the wash.

But it is still not clear why he had to go, and in such an apparently tight timeframe.

A Cock Up?

The only explanation that might make sense would be that 737 panicked at the thought of being brought into play by Harper and Power and instructed, somewhere along the way, that they be got rid of or neutralised.

Then Harper had retired and Power was more or less out of it, but this feedback was either not understood or resisted and the instruction maintained. So the administration had to figure out a way to get Power off the stage and ensure he was kept quiet, and suspension was the magic bullet.

Maybe I'm missing something very obvious here. If so I hope someone tells me what it is.

By the way, for all you crossword fans out there. The Jersey Inquiry's redactions relating to person 737 have now been rendered moot as his identity was publicly revealed late last month at an offshore event in London.

I have commented on Graham Power's evidence to the Jersey Inquiry here.

POWER POINTS

Graham Power
Click on any image for a larger version

Background

In 2000 Graham Power was recruited from the Scottish Police to take over as Jersey's Chief of Police. This was against a background where the Jersey administration knew there was a problem both within the police force and in policing on the Island.

Jersey is a small tight community ruled by a few families and there can be a general resentment of people or ideas imported from other jurisdictions. Scotland, however, has its own legal system distinct from that of England and Wales and this was a factor in Power's favour. It was expected that he would be adaptable and sensitive to the local environment, at least up to a point.

Lenny Harper

When Power felt he needed a strong Deputy, in 2002, he recruited Lenny Harper, who was then with the Scottish Force, but who had served in the London Met and the Northern Ireland RUC.

The pair were in the process of cleaning up the Jersey scene when the child abuse scandal broke in 2007. At first the police operation (Rectangle) was covert. The rationale was to get it established without political interference and then launch it in public with such a high profile that it would have its own momentum and in this way not be subject to political interference. The fear of political interference came from Jersey being a small community where the concept of the rule of law was tempered by kinship and proximity. There was also a fear, in this case, that many prominent people could ultimately be found wanting in the area of child protection.

To cut a long story short, the island administration finally came to the conclusion that the high profile investigation, accompanied by some riveting, if not entirely evidence based publicity, was shafting the island's reputation internationally. This was a serious problem as Jersey was highly reliant on its financial sector, effectively a tax haven.

Within a fairly short space of time, the Health Minister who had responsibility for child protection and who was not only supportive of the police investigation but had carried out his own investigation, was dumped. The Home Affairs Minister, also supportive of the police, resigned under pressure, to be replaced by more pliant successors. The Deputy Police Chief (Harper) retired in the normal course but was subject to a concerted campaign of maligning by the administration. And finally the Police Chief (Power) was himself suspended from duty in a rushed, botched and illegal operation by the administration. Following all this, the police operation was shut down and life appeared to have returned to normal.

Frances Oldham, Chair of Inquiry

But the thing just won't go away. Following pressure from a variety of sources within Jersey, and particularly a few parliamentarians and a group of bloggers who just wouldn't let go, a public inquiry into child abuse by State run institutions was eventually set up.

Effectively, this was to determine (i) the extent of child abuse that occurred since the end of WWII (ii) who had been responsible (iii) if the State's response had been adequate, and free from political interference and coverup and (iv) what should be done next.

In its first phase the inquiry, apart from scoping its work, heard from survivors of child sex abuse. In its present phase it is examining the role of those on the State side with responsibility for this area. And that is where the former Police Chief comes in. He has just given his oral testimony, over a day and a half, and this, along with some 1,200 pages of background documentation which he submitted to the inquiry, is now online.

I have just finished reading that material and I am setting out below some of the points that struck me as particularly interesting.

For those who may wish to go directly to the source, documentation it is available online as follows: documentation submitted by Power (PDF 67MB); day one transcript (PDF 580KB); day two transcript (PDF 643KB). [Update - 11/11/2018: This material has been taken down for "redaction" and is not expected to be available to the public for at least another 12 months.]

Power's Submission

Power's submission consists of

(i) a personal statement on oath. This is 181 pages long and is a serious indictment of the administration.
(ii) a further 1,026 pages of backup documents, some of which are particularly revealing:

• Decision by Complaints Board on request for dates of suspension letters.
  This may sound trivial but it shows the lengths to which the régime will go in an attempt to protect its own wrong doings. It contains blatantly ridiculous reasons for refusing access to the information sought. It may, however, have attained one of its goals, ie obstructive delay. I have looked at this in more detail under the suspension heading further down this post.
• Report of the Wiltshire Constabulary on the conduct of the child abuse operation (Operation Rectangle).
  This report was commissioned by the Jersey administration to provide the basis for disciplinary action against Power. It is a flawed report which judges Power (and Harper) against criteria which apply to the police in England and Wales, but not in Scotland, and particularly not in Jersey. It is therefore very critical of both CO Power and DCO/SIO Harper. Power is seen as weak and not properly supervising Harper. Harper is seen as headstrong and resisting appropriate oversight and customary checks and balances. The report accuses them of a lack of strategy for dealing with the evolving inquiry, sloppy paperwork, and their risking jeopardising upcoming court cases by leaving the States of Jersey Police open to accusations of abuse of process, where their "sensationalist" publicity could preclude a fair trial.
  
  Presentation of the report faced the authorities with a dilemma. If they chose to act on it and further discipline Power, they were admitting that English standards and procedures were all applicable in Jersey. If they chose not to act on it they were exposing its flawed terms of reference and the waste of £1m on a useless report. So with a customary Jersey sleight of hand, they just published a slightly redacted version and simply indicted Power in the court of public opinion.
  
  This is now the first time that the unredacted version is published. You can get an idea of the original redactions here. I should clarify that I am only talking here about the one 383 page summary report, a redacted version of which was published by the Jersey authorities, and the unredacted version of the same report included in Graham Power's documentation publishd by the Inquiry. I understand that the full documentation of the Wiltshire Report would fill the boot of a family car and that the extent to which the summary report reflects the voluminous evidence is hotly contested.
• Power's interim statement to the Inquiry by the Wiltshire Constabulary
  When the authorities refused Power legal representation for what was expected to be a week long interview with Wiltshire, he chose, as was his right, to confine himself to a long written statement in which he contests points being put to him arising from the statements of other witnesses. While this statement preceded the drafting of the final report it is effectively a critique of the report itself. A further and more pointed critique is contained in an interview with Power by the Voice for Children blog. Power's statement to Wiltshire was published on Stuart Syvret's blog and leaked to the BBC in Jersey. However, the broadcaster has not referred to it to this day.
  
• Transcripts of phone calls
  These were only made available to Power on his way into the Inquiry and he was then quizzed on them. These are very confusing and even the Inquiry's lawyer seemed at a loss in trying to interpret them.

To follow the story it is important to clearly distinguish between two things.

The first is Power's suspension from duty. This is a basis for criticising the régime and Power is the victim here.

The second is the conduct of Operation Rectangle itself, which shows up shortcomings by the state administration but has also led to criticism of the roles of Power and Harper.

These are dealt with separately below, insofar as it is possible to separate them, and all this is in the context of Power's appearance before the Inquiry.


The suspension

On 12 November 2008, Power was called into his office by his Minister (Andrew Lewis) and in the presence of the Chief Executive (Bill Ogley - head of the Civil Service) served with (draft) letters of suspension and told he had an hour to "consider his position". He was informed of a letter written to the Minister by Power's deputy (David Warcup) which, largely on the basis of a review report from the London Met, said he had mishandled Operation Rectangle.

Power took it that he was being given an opportunity to go quietly but he refused and objected to what was being done and the way it was being done. This seemed to have surprised those present and they were ill-prepared to deal with this turn of events. In the event Power was suspended (on full pay) on the spot.

When Power joined the Jersey police he was accountable to the Home Affairs Committee, under the committee system which was the form of government then in operation in Jersey. This was subsequently replaced by Ministerial government and he was now accountable to a single person, the Minister for Home Affairs. And there was no appeal mechanism against the Minister's decision. The administration were careful to suspend him on full pay as otherwise it would be construed as a dismissal and would have to be got through the Jersey parliament.

Despite the fact that proper procedure had not been observed on the day, Power felt there was even more to this kangaroo court than appeared and he subsequently asked for a load of information, including the dates on which the various letters which had been produced at the meeting had first been drafted. The point here was that the grounds for his suspension were a letter from Power's deputy which the Minister had received only the previous evening and which the Minister claimed was the sole factor leading to the suspension. Power eventually succeeded in determining that two of the three letters had actually been drafted three days earlier. And the London Met report was subsequently withdrawn as it was confidential to the force and specified not to be used for any disciplinary purpose. The Met subsequently confirmed that it had not criticised Power or Harper in the report.

So, all in all a very serious abuse of process. This abuse was subsequently compounded by the Minister for Home Affairs when he scuttled Power's Judicial Review of the original decision by a masterful sleight of hand which should not have been allowed. He confirmed the suspension, but this time surrounded by minimal legal hocus pocus, and this made the original (illegal) suspension decision obsolete and not subject to judicial review. At every turn the administration dragged out its dealings with Power in the hope of keeping him at bay until his official retirement in 2010. It succeeded in this.

So what has all this to do with child abuse and why is Power testifying to the Inquiry? Well, for one thing, the whole suspension process shows very clearly the lengths the administration will go to in order to cover its tracks when it makes a mistake or does something illegal.

This is really well illustrated in the attempt by the administration not to reveal the dates of the original drafts of the letters mentioned above. I suppose that this aspect appealed to me because it was a saga in an attempt to get access to information. I have operated Freedom of Information legislation within the Irish administration and the antics of the Jersey administration in this one were really something to behold. Jersey did not have FOI legislation at this time but there was a code for access to information which more or less amounted to the same thing.

After going unsuccessfully through a number of hoops Power ended up at the States of Jersey Complaints Board (on administrative decisions) which, to give them their due, found resoundingly in his favour. But what really caught my fancy was the Chief Minister's varied and ridiculous reasons advanced for refusing access.

In the first place he claimed that the information was not information in the sense covered by the code because it was on a computer. Then, to give it to Power it would have to be transcribed and that would then be different from the original, something newly created, and which would not be covered by the code. And if that failed the Minister was claiming that it was legally privileged. And remember this was effectively metadata relating to documents in Power's possession and it was also germane to his (original) judicial review. When the Complaints Board had some difficulty understanding the legal privilege objection, the Minister explained that the the time intervals involved could possibly have allowed Power to figure whether legal advice had been obtained or not. Now Power was only looking for three specific dates, and nothing more. As I said he got them in the end and they were devastatingly significant.

The Jersey administration had tied itself up in legal knots along the way, with the Minister for Home Affairs even abusing the concept of corporation sole to avoid overturning the original suspension decision, but that is sort of another story.

Ian Le Marquand vs Ian Le Marquand (aka Andrew Lewis)

The reason I'm labouring the above story is that it is such a clear example of the lengths the administration went to to cover up its wrong doing. If it does it for this what will it not do it for?

While the Complaints Board's report is included in the documentation submitted by Power it was not specifically referred to at the oral hearing. I thought that a pity as its message is so clear.

You can read the Board's full report here or just it's conclusions here.

Operation Rectangle

Operation Rectangle must have scared the living daylights out of a lot of people in the upper echelons of the administration. They had succeeded in sacking the Health Minister because he was critical of the level of child protection on the island and now they were faced with a full blown police investigation into child abuse which was attracting international attention.

Their instincts would have been to close down the inquiry as quickly as possible, but they were now hoisted on their own pétard. They had brought in two policemen from the "mainland" to clean up the place and they were now faced with the same two policemen who were determined to see this investigation through no matter whose boat was rocked.

This led to serious tension between the police and the rest of the administration, particularly the AG and the lawyers. Power was the Chief of Police and Harper the Senior Investigating Officer for Operation Retangle. They divided their tasks with Power fending off political and other interference and Harper ploughing away at the investigation.

Harper was seen by some in the administration as indulging in unnecessarily sensationalist publicity involving possible human remains and homicides. Harper felt he needed to keep the investigation in the public eye to reassure survivors who were coming forward. He felt he was also attempting to pre-empt leaks to the press. The whole situation was very murky and at times it seemed the operation was spinning out of control.

In the heel of the hunt Harper retired in the normal course and Power was illegally suspended. Their replacements, who had not distinguished themselves, scarpered when the going subsequently got rough, and by then the operation had been quietly closed down.

The current Inquiry is probably the last chance of vindication for Power and Harper but the chances of another police operation are slim, and there are even doubts about the bona fides of the current inquiry which has been sloppy and unprofessional in many respects. It may turn out that its only long term benefit will be the publication of documentation and the hearing of witnesses, not in itself a small matter, but way short of many people's expectations of closure for the survivors and justice for the perpetrators.

In any event, at this stage of the proceedings Power's sworn statement (pages 1-181 of his 67MB submission) is well worth reading in full.

Power at the Inquiry

I have only read a few of the statements submitted to the inquiry, but having read them and then followed the related transcripts, I am struck by the lack of focus in the oral hearings. I know that the oral hearing is not a cross examination strictly speaking. The Inquiry lawyer is supposed to be helping the witness present relevant material from their statements and endeavouring to test this for consistency.

But my strong impression in the cases of Bob Hill and Graham Power is that the lawyers "interrogation" of the witness simply serves to dilute their contribution. In Hill's case he was quizzed on documents he hadn't seen and the lawyer was jumping all over the place. In Power's case, as I mentioned, there was no following up on the access to information angle which would have encapsulated the stance of the administration and seriously undermined their overall credibility. And Power was also quizzed on confusing documentation which he had not had a chance to consider in advance.

Equally a major revelation about missing files in the statement from Trevor Pitman was not followed up. There is also an impression that witnesses are being rushed through and boxes being ticked.

None of this bodes well for a good result from this inquiry.

Some revelations in passing

There have been some further interesting points arising out of Power's submission.

Wendy Kinnard
As Minister for Home Affairs and Power's political boss, so to speak, Wendy Kinnard had been very supportive of Operation Rectangle. Power reveals, however, that she was being bullied by her male ministerial colleagues, and at one point she relinquished her responsibility for Operation Rectangle to her more pliant deputy Andrew Lewis. This was followed sometime later by her resignation as Minister and Lewis taking over just as Power was about to be suspended.

Wendy Kinnard

The unredacted version of Wiltshire in Power's documentation suggests that she relinquished control of the operation because she had a personal interest in the case. While this is revealing it poses more questions than it answers. No doubt it will provoke speculation over the next while and we may learn a little more in response to this. It was generally felt that her ultimate resignation resulted from a refusal to become involved in Power's illegal suspension but other more mundane reasons have been speculated on. She has so far refused to comment on any of this.

Person 737
The inquiry has redacted some of the submitted statements before publication. They have done this in an unbelievably clumsy and incompetent fashion. I have seen this in the case of both Hill's and Power's statements.

The most tantalising and amusing redaction has been of the identity of person 737 in Power's statement. This person was suspected of sexual assaults on adult females but, as far as is known, was not arrested or charged. The extracts below, reproduced from the statement, do not leave anyone with a knowledge of Jersey in any doubt about the identity of the person in question. Now if the island had more than one newspaper, it might be a different matter entirely.

Person 737
Click on image for a larger version

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Update 9/5/2017
I am very heartened to think that the Inquiry is reading my blog. They need all the help they can get.

You will see, above, that I pointed out significant deficiencies in their original redactions of material relating to Person 737, but I stopped short of naming him myself.

Well, the Inquiry have revisited this material and, inter alia, redacted the reference to the newspaper which had been a dead giveaway.

The final paragraph of the above extracts had not been redacted previously and it is simply Graham Power's guess at who might have been behind the political campaign against him. It is not solely linked to the activities of Person 737. Nevertheless, the Inquiry have made an unnecessary redaction by overstamping John Averty's name with their 737 stamp, thus definitively letting the cat out of the bag. Headless chickens.

Person 737
Click on image for a larger version

The latest additional redactions, in the current Inquiry online documentation, are highlighted in the above extracts.

I expect, however, that the additional damage attributable purely to the overstamping itself may be mitigated by Advocate Sinel's naming of John Averty at a conference on offshore financial centres on the mainland last year.

While I'm at it I should draw attention to something else I noticed in the course of my update.

Graham Power's hearing was on 5 November 2015 (Day 107) and the online documentation is filed under that day. His statement appeared online on 26/27 November 2015 some three weeks later, which is par for the course. The current online index (extract below) suggests that the latest redaction was on 9 December 2015, but internal document evidence says that the current document was created/modified on 18 February 2016.

This suggests that the indicator in the index is updated manually and not by the system so it cannot be trusted at all. This is just another example of the sloppiness of this abysmal website.

End of Update

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Update 20/12/2020
Following Mick Gradwell's evidence that he was to interview 737 I wondered if Power's suspension had put paid to that. I asked but never got an answer.

Today I had reason to look through some of my own comments on the Voice for Children blog and I see that I had actually answered my own question but had forgotten about it since.

This is Alison Fossey's evidence to the Jersey Inquiry on 3/12/2015 which makes it clear that John Averty was interviewed and arrested; an advice notice had been prepared for the AG and legal opinion was received. But no further action had been taken. So the AG blocked any further action. No surprise there.

Click on image for a larger version

Unfortunately, all the transcrips of daily sessions and evidence submitted to the Inquiry have been taken off line. There was a promise at the time that this was temporary but so far there is no sign of anything going back up. The Jersey Way I suppose.

End of Update

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Brian Moore, Chief Constable, Wiltshire
The Wiltshire report, referred to above, has played a big role in demonising Power and Harper, so I thought you might like to see Power's own view of this flawed report. It is not contained in his statement or oral contribution to the Inquiry. It is taken from an interview with Power by the Voice for Children blog and dates from June 2012.

Brian Moore

Moore was an "absentee investigator" if there ever was one. He never met with me and he even planned to have the disciplinary interviews conducted by subordinates. He did not get the basics right at the beginning. He accepted terms of reference which invited him to assess my conduct against the rules which apply in England and Wales (which were incorrectly described as the "UK"). At an early stage I pointed out that these rules did not even apply to Scotland, let alone Jersey, and that I had a clear political mandate to disregard any UK guidelines which were not consistent with local practice. I also drew attention to the fact that the political mandate not to apply UK guidelines in Jersey had been re-enforced by the advice of the Attorney General of the time (now the Deputy Bailiff William Bailhache) who would be called as a defence witness should the matter ever come to a hearing. But Moore carried on regardless without ever resolving that contradiction. In the end he could only do his report and ask an English Lawyer what disciplinary offences would apply to an English Chief operating under English rules. He then said that it was up to the Jersey authorities to decide whether to apply the same reasoning locally. This was an awkward problem for the Jersey Authorities. If they decided that English Guidelines did not apply in Jersey then the whole case collapsed. However, if they decided that English guidelines did apply then those guidelines would then become the "bible" for policing the Island and 800 years of policing tradition would go out of the window. This dilemma presented quite a problem. In the end Ministers dealt with this in the time honored way. They put off making a decision until it was too late anyway. That is after all "the Jersey Way". What a waste. An enquiry built on sand. No matter how much work is done, if the foundations are not sound then the whole thing falls over. Having accepted wide ranging terms of reference Moore compounded his error by authorizing "fishing expeditions" which involved trawling through every email I had sent and every document I had created. Interviews were conducted with people I worked with 20 years ago, asking them to remember something, anything, that could stick. By any standard this was foolish, wasteful, but also contemptible. A more professional approach would have involved a tight "ring fenced" enquiry focusing on specific relevant issues and bound by clear timescales and budgets. This was never done, and in consequence the investigation took on a life of its own, perpetuating one line of enquiry after another until the original purpose became lost in the mass of data. He also failed to get a grip of the timescales and the spending behavior of his own staff whose apparent determination to leave no expense unclaimed provided a welcome boost to the local hotel and hospitality industry, but did nothing for law enforcement. Perhaps he could not believe his luck that so much Jersey money was being siphoned off into his Force accounts. In all probability he will have made good use of it for the benefit of the citizens of Wiltshire. The benefit to the citizens of Jersey is less apparent. I expect that he will have his excuses but the result speaks for itself. Over £1m and nearly two years spent on an enquiry with no result. And he was the Investigating Officer. Not “overseeing” the enquiry, not the person with executive responsibility, he was the named person in charge. Nobody with their name on the failed Wiltshire enquiry should have the nerve to criticise anyone else's conduct of any enquiry ever. They have forfeited their right to criticise anyone else. They have allowed themselves to be drawn into a political vendetta, they have wasted over a million pounds, and they have produced a flawed report when they knew it was too late to do anything with it.

Shafting Jersey

What is the image above? That will become clear at the end of this post.


We'll start by setting the scene on the island of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France.

Despite its proximity to the French coast it is British, a British Crown Dependency. It is sort of independent and originally answered directly to the British Monarch who was responsible for its good governance. The monarch has since delegated this function to her UK Justice Minister.

The island has been marketed to English speaking tourists as a bit of France without the language problem, and so it is. If you dig down a bit you will find a French dialect, Jèrriais, which is still spoken by a few people none of whom are monoglots. When I lived there, those English speakers who were aware of its existence, referred to it as patois (a slightly condescending term meaning local dialect).

Idyllic scene in St. John parish

All in all, a romantic little spot.

Until you hit the dark side.

This is the story of a vulnerable lady abused by a churchwarden who had somehow managed to escape his leash. The case was not generally known until it surfaced when her cause was taken up by Jersey's only independent media, the bloggers. It has now become a cause célèbre which threatens not only the island's administration and its relationship with the UK, but also the position of the Jersey branch of the Church of England, which is a sort of established church of its own on the island.

The lady in question is mildly autistic but very articulate and self-aware. She had a very difficult family upbringing on the mainland and was at least twice abused, including by an officer of the Church of England. She came to this "idyllic" island and all was going well until she ran into the churchwarden, who, unknown to her, was supposed to be always chaperoned when in the company of women due to his previous abusive behaviour.

When she tried to complain about his abusing her, she was not listened to. After all, the man was a churchwarden and the brother of one of the most important figures on the island. So she made more and more of a fuss and the Church decided that she would be better off in police custody where she would be "looked after".

The Dean of Jersey

So, early one Sunday morning, acting on the basis of a complaint from the Dean of Jersey, the island's senior churchman, the police arrived at her accommodation and took her down to the station. She was eventually brought before a magistrate and remanded in custody, which was to last for two weeks, until they saw fit to bring her to court.

It appears the court effectively offered her a choice of returning to prison or leaving the island. In fact they seem to have contrived to get her lawyer to make the "voluntary deportation" suggestion in the first place.

Don't forget that her autism combined with her earlier experiences made it difficult for her to relate to people or to trust them, so the prospect of returning to the horrors of her prison confinement was just not on.

There is absolutely no reason why she should have been kept in the prison for two weeks other than to soften her up for the "deportation" deal. She had a job and accommodation and could have been bound over to keep the peace and remained on the island. It was claimed that her landlady would not have her back on the premises after her arrest, but, when subsequently contacted, the landlady said this would not have been a problem had she been told what was going on.

In any event, the lady was flown to Southampton on the mainland in the night attire she was in when arrested and, to all intents and purposes, simply abandoned there, forbidden to attempt to come back to the island for three years.

That was all three years ago and she has been living outdoors for most of the time ever since.

When the case broke a while ago, the island establishment launched into a disgusting spin campaign.

Oh, she was known to have made complaints about the church on the mainland before she ever came to Jersey. So a victim's complaining about abuse was somehow a reflection on them. An awkward troublemaker perhaps? Jaysus.

The poor woman was mentally ill. She had mild autism and suffered from post traumatic stress but that did not make her mentally ill. She might justifiably have been angry after what was done to her. She might have been a bit withdrawn due to her autism. But mentally ill she was not and she has the reports to prove it.

However, the island's establishment (church/state) was now in a panic after the failure of their first attempt to brush her under the carpet and they were now making a second attempt. And these guys are good at this.

You have to remember here that there is a huge child abuse problem rumbling away under the covers in Jersey. Decades of institutional abuse have been systematically covered up. One false move and the whole edifice could come tumbling down. And this was before all the Savile and related stuff broke.

Former minister now in prison

As I said, good at it. They had dismissed the Health Minister when he started poking around the delicate area of child abuse and refused to go along with the prevailing wisdom that everything in the garden was rosey. They sacked the Chief of Police when he wouldn't go along with getting involved in the sacking of the Health Minister. There were other reasons too for that but that's another story in itself. They systematically smeared the policeman who was in charge of the investigation into the abuses. The former Health Minister, turned blogger, is currently in prison for revealing abuses on his blog and two members of the island's parliament are in the course of being bankrupted in order to take them out of play. In the view of the oligarchy that runs the place, these people are "shafting Jersey". A rational outsider might think that the "shafting" was in the condoning and covering up of child abuse rather than in its revealing and attempting to hold those responsible to account.

As I said, these guys mean business, big business. The reputational damage which would result from full revelation of earlier abuses and the ongoing coverup could undermine Jersey's current status as a tax haven and a safe place to keep your money out of the hands of the relevant revenue authorities. Were it to become clear that there is no more respect for the law in Jersey than in some hicksville in the Wild West in days gone by, the island's financial standing and resulting income would be in some serious difficulty.

Deputy Chairman of Jersey Financial Services Commission

So all the stops are pulled out to keep the show on the road.

Even the Bishop of Winchester, in whose diocese Jersey sort of is, has had his knuckles rapped by the islands oligarchs.

When the lady's treatment at the hands of the authorities, and in particular the church in the person of the Dean, were revealed to a wider audience, the Bishop suspended the Dean, who had by then been severely criticised in a report commissioned by the Diocese. But the Bishop got his comeuppance when it was pointed out to him that the Dean held his office under letters patent from the Monarch, who is also head of the Church of England. And the Dean has an ex officio seat in the island's parliament. So really the Bishop could not sack or suspend or do anything else to him.

So the Dean was reinstated, after apologising for some understandable lapses, and the Bishop commissioned another report to look into how the young lady had been dealt with. A neat piece of footwork ensured that this was undertaken by a friend of the oligarchy and although it has not yet been published, the Bishop has said that there will be no question of any disciplinary action being taken against anyone. Then, to cap it all, someone has made a legal complaint against the publication of the as yet unseen report and the Bishop cannot publish it. The oligarchy has steam coming out its ears at the non publication of this carefully orchestrated report, which did not even interview the lady at the centre of it. And all hell is breaking loose.

Bishop of Winchester, in a delicate position

This is a personal, political, religious and constitutional mess which has implications right up to the Monarchy which in the past has steadfastly refused to face up to its responsibilities to ensure good governance on the island. As I have said elsewhere, there is no separation of powers and the legislature, government and judiciary are just one big maw. No checks and balances, everyone scratching everyone else's back and no one minded to shout stop, except those few who have subsequently been discredited, and a handful of bloggers who are chipping away at this awful edifice.

So, back to the picture at the top of the blog. This is the default avatar in Twitter and I have chosen it as a tribute to the lady in question and as an indication of her tenacity in fighting all comers even in the face of her own adversity. She has kept her dignity in the face of vicious verbal and physical onslaughts and a life mainly lived outdoors on the streets. She has been bounced, or fled, from one location to the next, but she is fighting back. She has a lot going for her. She is articulate and determined. She is beginning to blossom in the social media world of blogs and tweets. She is forgiving, which is more than I would be in her place, and she just wants to be left alone to hack out some sort of a life for herself.

But she has now become a pawn in a bigger game. The clash of the Titans, the crash of the tectonic plates between Jersey and the mainland. The mad scramble to keep the cover-up under wraps. The lowering of the portcullis and the pulling up of the drawbridge.

Mont Orgeuil Castle
View from Haut de la Garenne (1961)

However, this castle is built on sand and the sand is starting to shift.

Someday soon she will hopefully get the justice she deserves.

And as for serenity, well she's working on that herself.

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If you want some more background or want to stay in touch with developments in this area in Jersey, you won't get the stories in the island's mainstream media. The links below may be of some help.

I have done a backgrounder and an evocation of the Nazi occupation on this blog.

Below are some of the Jersey bloggers that I follow. If you read their blogposts, and the (generally informed) comments that go with them, you should be able to stay up to date with what's happening on the island in this contentious area.

Stuart Syvret  Neil McMurray  Rico Sorda  Trevor Pitman  Bob Hill

Stuart's blogposts and comments stop on 4 November 2013 when he was arrested and thrown in prison. However, he has posted some very important material over the last few years and you should find this both informative and entertaining. [Following Google taking down Stuart's blog, he is now blogging from a new site and I have amended the above link accordingly. Ed. 26/3/2014]

Neil's blog is very incisive and he has specialised in doing very high quality video interviews with various players in the Jersey tragedy.

Rico is an independent investigator who has gained the trust of honest people to the extent that they are now leaking him documents which he publishes, and comments on, on his blog.

Trevor is a member of the island's parliament, but, if the oligarchy manage to declare him bankrupt over the next while, he will be chucked out of the parliament and his blog's future may be in doubt.[Trevor is now out of the States (parliament) and has been declared bankrupt which means he cannot go up for election in October 2014. His blog is still there but not very active. Ed. 22/7/2014]

Bob is a former policeman and a former member of the island's parliament. His blog covers a wide span of issues but in recent times he has come to champion the cause of the lady in the above blogpost.

And, having spoken today to the Lady concerned, she has graciously allowed me to link to her Tweets and Blog Posts. Good on ya girl.

You might also like to listen to recent (27/11/2013) interviews by Peoples Voice TV with Lenny Harper (the policeman in charge of the abuse investigation), Trevor and Shona Pitman (who are being bankrupted by the oligarchy) and John Hemming the UK MP who has been supportive of those who have spoken out in Jersey and who has an Early Day Motion tabled in the UK House of Commons calling for a proper enquiry into governance in Jersey. Sound quality is not great and the interviewer is a bit over the top, but the content is well worth a listen.

And if you think all this is getting too much for you, you might like the distraction of a few relevant cartoons.

Jersey (CI)

This post is intended as a short backgrounder on the current situation regarding child abuse in Jersey (CI).

The Background

Behind its façade as a British holiday resort with a taste of France and without the hassle of the French language, Jersey is actually a very different place.

It is small (about 46 square miles / 120 km²). It is parochial, not only in the attitudinal sense of the word. Its administration is significantly based on the parish (of which there are 12 on the island). It is a Crown Dependency, which means it is not, strictly speaking, part of the UK or the EU. Technically the Queen is in charge, and is responsible for good governance on the island, but she normally delegates her authority to the UK Justice Minister. Jersey has its own Parliament, called the States.

Some years ago, individuals involved with the Jersey Sea Cadets were investigated in relation to child sex abuse. Despite suspicions of more serious crimes, there was only one arrest linked to child pornography. However, links to other institutions, including Haut de La Garenne, emerged in the course of the investigation and these were followed up leading to the wider abuse investigation.

That investigation was initially covert as the leading policeman did not want to alert the island's political authorities. Given their suspected complicity in what was going on, they might have been tempted to stymie the investigation. At a later stage the investigation had to go very forcibly public. This time to reassure survivors of abuse that it was serious in getting to the bottom of the problem come hell or high water, and that unlike in the past, the survivors would be taken seriously if they came forward with evidence.

The intense publicity for the investigation was also intended by the police to make it harder for the island's ruling elite to interfere with, or stop, the investigation. It was also intended to put pressure on them to follow up with appropriate action themselves, such as prosecutions, which they had previously been reluctant to do.

During the covert stage of the investigation, and not knowing it was in train, the then Health Minister was conducting some research of his own in response to approaches from survivors. This put him in a position that, when he was asked in the island's parliament if he was satisfied with the island's child protection régime (for which he was responsible), he had to admit that he wasn't. This admission set the cat among the pigeons and the ruling elite had him dismissed shortly afterwards.

Much to the dismay of the authorities, the police investigation then went seriously public and despite its public protestations to the contrary, the ruling elite did everything in its power close down that investigation. The Senior Investigating Officer (Lenny Harper) was shortly due to retire and that probably saved him from the fate of his boss the Police Chief (Graham Power) who was suspended (effectively dismissed) for doing his job without fear or favour. Every effort was then made to rubbish the investigation, shut it down, and slur the officers concerned. Combined with a policy of procrastination and petty harassment, this seemed to be succeeding, at least for the moment.

Now the revelations about Jimmy Savile have once more turned the spotlight on Jersey and it will be up to the people of the island, and the justice campaigners in particular, to ensure that this opportunity to rekindle the investigation is not missed.

The Cover-up

The original abuse scandal has been enormously complicated by the subsequent cover-up. Many of those in power in Jersey, even where not involved in the abuse itself, have become complicit in covering it up. And some of those still in positions of responsibility are themselves alleged to have been involved in the abuse. This has meant that anyone attempting to get to the bottom of it runs straightaway into a brick wall.

So it is not surprising that there has been a concerted effort by the power elite to suppress any real investigation, slur and harass the investigators, and try and avoid any adverse publicity outside Jersey.

The island is a serious "tax haven", used not only by "foreigners" but also by the UK itself. Reputational damage could have serious financial repercussions for the island and the UK. So it is not hard to understand why it is proving so difficult to get the UK authorities, who are effectively responsible for good governance in Jersey, to take action.

On top of this there are serious allegations of UK celebrities, politicians and other authority figures having availed of the pool of abusable children in Jersey. In a disgusting abuse of language these activities have been referred to as perks. It may turn your stomach but it does reflect an attitude that, to judge from the extent of the abuse, was prevalent in many quarters, in both Jersey and the UK.

The Empire strikes back

The Jersey Oligarchy has made every effort possible to suppress knowledge of the abuse and to thwart any attempt to bring the perpetrators to justice.

A small number of people have, by now, been successfully prosecuted, but these prosecutions were initiated during the earlier investigation where they were aggressively promoted by Graham Power and Lenny Harper. This stream has now dried up.

One of the first people, in recent times, to fall foul of the régime was the then Senator Stuart Syvret. The doyen of the States (Jersey Parliament) he was effectively the Health Minister and, as such, responsible for the child protection service. His refusal to sign a blank cheque endorsing the service led to his dismissal from the States and a subsequent campaign of harassment, including an illegal police raid on his house, which has not abated. He was jailed twice in circumstances where others would have been given a slap on the wrist or not even prosecuted in the first place.

He has purposely contested to the limit any court action taken against him with a view to drawing wider attention to the operation of the system of "justice" on the island, including the misuse of the data protection legislation.

He is currently working on a legal case against the authorities to take to Europe. This will have to have gone through the Jersey and UK systems first, and this is taking huge time and effort on his part. At one stage he "escaped" to London but is now back in Jersey, and, as far as I know, living on social welfare. Major elements in the case he is preparing are the lack of separation of powers in Jersey, the extreme conflicts of interest within the justice system and the sheer perversity with which the law is applied to opponents of the régime.

Then there was Lenny Harper, Senior Investigating Officer in the child abuse investigation. Lenny is something else. A Northern Irish Protestant married to a Roman Catholic, with a previous career in the RUC and the Met, he was originally recruited to clean up the island. Well, at least I think that's what he thought at the time. When he set about his job with objective enthusiasm, all hell broke loose. He conducted arms raids across the island, revealing large firearms stashes rising in seriousness right up to the level of a rocket launcher.

When he got to the abuse investigation he set to it with a will. Initially the investigation itself was not revealed even to the authorities, for the very good reason that many of them were implicated, or at least complicit in the cover-up. When it had gained enough momentum the investigation was revealed in the full glare of publicity. This had two main aims: first, to thwart any effort by the administration to wind it up or suppress it, and, equally important, to convince survivors that, this time, it was for real. They would be listened to and their complaints would be pursued no matter where they led. The strategy was a good one and Lenny gained the trust of all of those who were genuinely concerned to see justice done. Lenny retired before the investigation was fully completed and the authorities have persistently attempted to slur him ever since. Anyone who has read his published commentaries or seen him on video or read the exposés of what is going on, will have no difficulty in concluding that he was an exceptional police officer doing a magnificent job in the teeth of vicious and unrelenting opposition from the island's political elite

Lenny's boss, the Chief of Police, Graham Power, backed him all the way. Graham had also come from the "mainland", and again from reading his affidavits and commentaries, it is clear that he was an exemplary officer. Not exactly what the régime had in mind, however, and when he refused to become involved in the administration's attempt to sack the Health Minister, he was himself sacked (suspended) soon afterwards. Both he and Lenny were replaced by officers who immediately set about rubbishing the abuse enquiry.

One of them even resorted to leaking information, designed to undermine that enquiry, to a hostile mainland journalist. This is a crime without any public interest defence. I mention this because Stuart Syret has been prosecuted for leaking material for which there was a self-evident public interest defence which was refused by the local judicial system. This ended in Stuart going to prison while no action was taken in the case of the police officer.

Just so you get the atmosphere in which a lot of this was taking place, Frank Walker, then Chief Minister, accused Stuart Syvret, on a BBC Panorama programme, of "shafting Jersey" by his revelations. Clearly, avoiding reputational damage took precedence over any idea of justice or compassion. This seems to be a standard institutional response in such cases (vide the Vatican and the RCC hierarchy throughout the world).

Separation of Powers

Jersey probably has more in common with a feudal state than with a modern democratic one. Particular families have long wielded effective power. There is no formal separation of powers such as one might expect in a modern democratic state. The executive, parliament, judicial system, and public prosecutor are all part of the same amorphous mass. This makes for a highly politicised justice system, and it explains much of the tension between the police and the prosecution service during the tenure of Power and Harper, officers who were attuned to the UK system and who were taken aback at the extent of political interference in the judicial and policing areas in Jersey.

It is against this background that Stuart Syvret is attempting to involve Europe in the Jersey scene and that Power and Harper had to resort to stratagems to secure the prosecution of sex abuse offenders.

The Media

The media in Jersey is a sort of unfunny joke. The Jersey Evening Post, the island's only newpaper, is a creature of the establishment. Full stop. Surprisingly, so is BBC Jersey. The local station seems to have the same relationship with Auntie that Stormont had with Westminster in the bad old days: do what you like as long as you don't rock the mainland boat. Channel TV, part of the ITV network, seems no better.

The extent to which the Jersey authorities take for granted their right to control the mainstream media was thrown into sharp relief recently. They contrived to get the UK authorities to deny access to the UK (and Jersey) to a US financial journalist in good standing, Leah McGrath Goodman. She was beginning to turn her attention to the sex-abuse cover-up. This has seriously backfired as her disgraceful detention at Heathrow airport, and subsequent expulsion from the UK, has only drawn serious international attention to the strange goings-on on the island.

The Bloggers

The lack of proper media has led to the rise of the Jersey bloggers. They are now many but three in particular merit mention.

Ex-Senator Stuart Syvret, mentioned also above, has been blogging since 2008. His blog is a commentary on the current state of affairs in Jersey with particular reference to the sex-abuse cover-up. He occasionally has a go at other scandals as well. He is well informed and has the confidence of the survivors. He tilts outrageously at the establishment including at individuals, safe (so far) in the knowledge that he is right and that any effort to sue him would do more damage to the complainant than to him. One of his campaigns relates to a nurse who is alleged to have murdered a number of people in a Jersey hospital and who is now in the UK, apparently still operating as a nurse. It is thought that Stuart is currently subject to a supergag order in relation to this case.

Voice for Children has been blogging since 2007 and in recent times has had a serious impact with high quality video interviews with people in power in Jersey (those willing to participate) and others, such as Graham Power and Lenny Harper, currently outside the island. In a fascinating development, VFC has also succeeded in covering sessions of relevant parliamentary committees, such as Scrutiny (the equivalent of our powerful Public Accounts Committee). These videos have been first class and would be a credit to any professional TV station. But of course the Jersey mainstram media run a mile from this sort of stuff. VFC also developed a style in doorstepping which is very effective. The videos are all preceded by a short station identification animation, which equates Jersey with North Korea, and which has yet to fail to make me smile.

Rico Sorda has reluctantly become an investigative journalist and has broken a number of stories, involving leaked documents or the assiduous marshalling of known facts. He has also been doing some live video transmissions including taking text questions from viewers in real time.

The bloggers have the administration worried as hell. They are pounding away on the home front, being leaked material which leakers will not entrust to the compromised mainstream media, and they are building up an international following. They are really bringing home to the administration that "no man is an island", particularly in this internet age. They are engaged in a cooperative rather than a competitive exercise and are quite happy to refer readers to each other or to other local blogs, such as, for example, that of States member Trevor Pitman.

The Savile case

Up to very recently, there seemed to have been a prospect that, despite the efforts of the bloggers and the survivors, the whole thing might just go away. The administration introduced a compensation scheme which they hoped would put the survivors to bed, so to speak, and they have been dithering about a Commission of Inquiry, all the while attempting to dilute its terms of reference to keep it out of harm's way.

Now, hopefully, as a result of the Savile revelations, all this is changing. The UK and international media are once again taking a close look at Jersey. Savile was a frequent visitor to the island. His mother is said to have lived there. He is now beginning to be named in individual complaints and those in which he had been named previously are now being taken more seriously.

The aim now should be not just to document Savile's activities and bring some sort of closure to his victims, but to use this opportunity to root out those, still living and in positions of power, who are guilty of abuse or complicit in covering it up.

Personal

I'll end on a personal note.

I worked in Jersey during the Summer of 1961 and fell in love with the place - more with the north than with the south, but however. I took the night shot below of Gorey Castle (Mont Orgeuil as it is appropriately known). I was proud of the shot and produced it a few years ago in a comment on a Jersey blog. For me it symbolised a majestic and romantic vision of this beautiful island.

It wasn't long before another contributor to the blog revealed that for her the picture had no such benign connotations. She had been an inmate in Haut de la Garenne, a short distance away, and that was the sight that confronted the children as they made their way to get the bus into St. Helier.

A seriously conflicted symbol then.

La Reine de la Manche

"The Queen of the Channel", Jersey, Channel Islands, occupies a unique space. It is French but not French; it is British but not part of the UK; it is not in the EU but sort of of it; it is a tax haven sheltering under the relative respectability of a British Crown Dependency just off the coast of France.


In 1961, when I went there for summer work, it was a beautiful place, a sort of tourist paradise, advertised as a taste of France without the language problem. It was, and is still, more or less self-governing while formally the responsibility of the British Crown.



It is the only part of the "British Isles" to have been occupied by the Third Reich and the legacy of the occupation is still there to this day. Mind you, it did have some delusions of grandeur as illustrated by the limmo above, carrying the then current heads of state or government of the WWII allies: McMillan, JFK, de Gaulle and Kruschev.


The big tourist festival, akin to the St. Patrick's day parade for the Irish, was the "Battle of Flowers" where magnificent floats, completely covered in flowers, took part in a parade along the prom at St. Helier, the capital. When it was over the flowers were torn off the floats and pegged at one's opponents, whence the "battle".


All very idyllic, you might think. But revelations in recent times have shown this magic island in an entirely different light. Horrendous physical and sexual abuse of children, principally in institutions, has come to light. This was perpetrated by those in positions of power and has been systematically covered up by the Jersey administration for years.

When Senator Stuart Syvret, the Health Minister in the period 2005-2007, started poking the embers in response to complaints from victims, he was summarily sacked and has since been the object of villification and illegal harassment. The chief of police, who had come from the mainland, was also summarily sacked ("suspended") when he supported the efforts of his deputy to carry out the police enquiry into the abuse in a professional manner and free from political interference.

Ex-Senator Syvret is now working his way through the local courts en route to the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. The, now retired, former Deputy Police Chief has provided him with an affidavit which is well worth reading in full. Stuart has reproduced it on his blog.

Says it all. Unfortunately.

Update: subsequent post.