Realism and justice

THE name Haut de la Garenne – in the spotlight again because of this week’s announcement that there will be no further action in two alleged abuse cases, one involving the former children’s home – will be tainted for a very long time by the allegations and revelations with which it is associated.

Also, whether we like it or not, the disinformation, pure fantasy, speculation and exaggeration circulated in the last 15 months are likely to lodge in the popular imagination rather than any facts which have been established beyond reasonable doubt – or, indeed, the suffering of the victims whom we know to be all too real.

There can be no justification for minimising crimes committed at the home. Nor must uncertainties be used to undermine the sympathy and understanding which those who actually suffered abuse deserve but which, to date, they feel they have not received. We and the outside world must nevertheless be fully realistic about an episode in Island life that has, with scant justification in the final analysis, cast this community in an extremely unfavourable light.

Although they seem to be able to put the manifest errors and highly questionable tactics of the Lenny Harper investigation to the backs of their minds, far too many people here, in the UK and internationally are all too eager to make judgments based not on what has actually been revealed but what they convince themselves must have happened – in terms of offences and in the realm of supposed official conspiracies and cover-ups.

Although the whole issue has, quite properly, never gone away, new attention has been focused this week on the historical child abuse inquiry because the Attorney General, William Bailhache, has announced that cases that were still on the books have now been dropped.

Understandably, the decision has disappointed the complainants. It must also have been a tough decision for Mr Bailhache to reach and it is important to acknowledge the thoroughness and professionalism of his reasons for doing so. For that reason, it is to be hoped that as many Islanders as possible will study a vital document linked to yesterday’s announcement. Freely available on the Jersey Evening Post’s thisisjersey website and elsewhere is a statement explaining, with great care, why it was impossible to press ahead with the cases which have now been dropped.

It is clear that Mr Bailhache’s decision will not please everyone. Indeed, even those with no personal stake in the abuse inquiry might have preferred the processes of law to run their full course. But the truth of the matter is this – as the statement makes abundantly obvious to those willing to give it its due, there is no point, no virtue and no sense in the Crown pursuing prosecutions which, on the strength of the available evidence, would have have no chance of success from the outset.

SourceJune 5, 2009 – 3:00 pm