Police extend Jersey abuse probe to WW2 bunker

Police carrying out an inquiry into reports of decades of child abuse on Jersey said on Wednesday they were extending their probe to a second site, a former World War Two underground German bunker.

The announcement is the latest step in the long-running investigation into allegations of abuse going back as far as the 1950s and said to have centred around the Haut de la Garenne care home.

Detectives, who began their inquiry last November, have already carried out extensive searches of cellars at the home where scores of people have claimed they were abused.

The Channel island's Deputy Police Chief Lenny Harper said the bunker would be examined after six witnesses alleged that staff from the home took children to the bunker to commit "serious sexual crimes".

"As a result of information, intelligence and evidence which has been collected during the investigation to date, we have identified a second scene which we believe to be a scene of crime," he told reporters.

The new search was not expected to be as comprehensive as the major excavation of underground areas of the care home and should only last a few days, Harper said.

He said the search was taking place now as it would not have been practical or possible to carry it out beforehand.

"We've had to wait until we had finished at Haut de la Garenne before we started the full forensic scene examination here," he said.

The first step will be to send in a specialist dog, trained to locate blood or human remains.

"Bearing in mind the nature of the property, an old wartime bunker, it would be surprising if we didn't get a reaction of some sort," Harper said.

That will be followed by a full scene-of-crime examination of the bunker, a large construction made up of a number of rooms. He said police hoped to find forensic evidence to back up the allegations of sexual offences.

So far three people have been charged with sexual offences against young boys and girls as part of the inquiry.

Detectives say they have found 65 teeth and bone fragments, mostly thought to have come from children, in searches of various cellars at the home which closed in 1986.

Harper, who said witnesses were still coming forward to police, has previously said the finds could eventually lead to a murder inquiry. He admitted on Wednesday the inquiry could still take some time.

"By the very nature of the investigation, it has to be methodical and that means lengthy," he said. "Some of these investigations have gone on for years and years."