Wednesday 3 September 2014

Jersey care abuse inquiry - Never seen it summarized like this before

February 2008: Operation Rectangle, now the centre of global media attention, begins to focus on the Haut de la Garenne care home. Police discover "skull fragments".
 
March 2008: A public rally in St Helier highlights concern over the way abuse claims at Haut de la Garenne were handled
 
May 2008: News emerges that what police originally thought were bone fragments discovered in February at Haut de la Garenne are more likely wood or coconut shell.
 
July 2008: Labour MP Austin Mitchell tables a Commons motion calling on the UK government to hold an inquiry into Jersey child abuse allegations. He says he has no confidence in a public inquiry by Jersey authorities.
 
September 2008: Jersey's Attorney General, William Bailhache, defends the island's legal system, following allegations of a "cover-up".
 
November 2008: Chief of Police Graham Power is suspended over his handling of Operation Rectangle. His performance becomes subject to a separate £1m investigation by Wiltshire Police. Mr Power accuses ministers of "a state-sponsored, taxpayer-funded personal vendetta". He says politicians "interfered" with police investigations and "closed ranks" with civil servants.
 
June 2009: In the first Operation Rectangle prosecution, Michael Aubin, 46, a former resident at Haut de la Garenne and also a victim of abuse, admits abusing other boys between 1977 and 1980. He was sentenced to probation and immediately freed, having spent 19 months on remand.
 
August 2009: Claude James Donnelly is jailed for 15 years for rape and indecent assault.
 
September 2009: Gordon Claude Wateridge is sentenced for three offences of indecent assault on girls under 16 between 1969 and 1979 at Haut de la Garenne.
 
November 2009: Ronald George Thorne sentenced to 12 months in jail for gross indecency between 1983 and 1984.
 
2010: Leonard Miles Vandenborn is sentenced to 12 years for rape and indecent assault in the 1970s and 1980s.
 
January 2011: Anthony and Morag Jordan found guilty of assaults on children during the 1970s and 1980s and sentenced to six and nine months respectively.
 
February 2011: Senator Francis Le Gresley lodges a proposition in the States Assembly demanding a public inquiry.
 
March 2012: Victims of abuse are offered up to £60,000 compensation, without the need for a court hearing.
 
October 2012: Several islanders complain they were abused by Jimmy Savile in Jersey. At least one complains he was assaulted by the entertainer at Haut de la Garenne in the 1970s.
 
March 2013: States Assembly unanimously agrees the framework for an independent inquiry into historical child abuse. Chief Minister Ian Gorst blames the delay on his own "cautious approach over the terms of reference".
 
July 2013: The inquiry is delayed when its chair, Sally Bradley QC, suffers a stroke. She is eventually replaced by Frances Oldham QC, who promises to be "fearless and robust"
 
2014: As the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry finally gets under way in July, campaigners including MP John Hemming continue their calls for UK authorities to include Jersey in a forthcoming nation-wide child abuse inquiry.

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