Jersey child abuse investigation 2008

The Jersey child abuse investigation 2008 is an investigation into historic child abuse in Jersey. It started in the spring of 2007. Before that, social worker Simon Bellwood had made a complaint about a "'Dickensian' system" where children as young as 11 were routinely locked up for 24 hours or more in solitary confinement in a secure unit where he worked. The wider investigation into child abuse over several decades became public in November that year. It received international attention when police moved into Haut de la Garenne, then being used as a youth hostel.

A wide-ranging government investigation into child abuse had begun in 2006, and escalated into a States of Jersey Police investigation in 2007 during which witness evidence repeatedly indicated Haut de la Garenne, which housed up to 60 children at any one time, to be one of the places where abuse took place.

There was widespread media coverage as forensic teams conducted searches in the building between the end of February 2008 and July 2008.

An initial finding of a fragment of what was believed to be a child's skull was widely publicised, but forensic tests later confirmed that the finding was irrelevant. It later transpired that the forensic team had informed the police prior to the announcement of the discovery of supposed human remains that the item might predate the inquiry timeframe, being from infill from a graveyard or of prehistoric origin. In February 2009 States of Jersey Police sent the fragment to Kew Gardens in the UK for testing. In May 2009 the Kew experts stated that the fragment was a piece of endocarp of Cocos nucifera, i.e. a piece of coconut.

By the end of the excavations and investigations at Haut de la Garenne in July 2008, police had sifted over 150 tonnes of earth. 65 human milk teeth were found, coming from between 10 and 65 individuals aged between 6–12 years and generally seeming to have been shed naturally. Discounting a large quantity of animal bones, only three bone fragments (the largest 25 mm = 1 inch long) were identified as possibly human; two of them have been dated to a range from 1470 to 1650 and the other 1650 to 1950.

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