Former Haut de la Garenne house parents Morag and Anthony Jordan used 'casual and routine violence' against children
Anthony and Morag Jordan have been jailed for a string of assaults against children on Jersey island Anthony and Morag Jordan have been jailed for a string of physical assaults against vulnerable children at the Haut de la Garenne care home on the island of Jersey during the 1970s and 1980s Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA
A husband and wife have been jailed for physically assaulting children at the Haut de la Garenne residential home in Jersey.
Morag and Anthony Jordan, both 62, from Kirriemuir, Angus, received jail terms of nine months and six months respectively at the royal court of Jersey. They had been found guilty in November last year of eight separate counts relating to abuse at the home.
Morag Jordan was acquitted of a further 28 counts and her husband of four.
Morgan Jordan, who worked at the children's home between 1970 and 1984, was convicted of assaults including pushing a child's face into urine-soaked sheets after she wet the bed and hitting other children with her hand and a wooden shoe. Her husband was found guilty of hitting children with a metal spoon, a knife and his hand.
Prosecutors said the couple were "intimidating bullies" who used "casual and routine violence" while working as house parents.
Last year another former carer at the home, Gordon Wateridge, then 78, was convicted of eight charges of indecent assault and one of assault against teenagers living there during the 1970s.
Wateridge, also a house parent, would grope girls' breasts, hug teenagers inappropriately and kiss them on the neck, the court was told. He indecently assaulted three teenage girls and assaulted one teenage boy.
Also last year a former teenage resident of the home, Michael Aubin, was convicted of sexually abusing other boys there.
The £4.5m police investigation into alleged crimes at Haut de la Garenne has faced criticism. In February 2008 the Jersey force said it had found the "potential remains of a child" buried under the Victorian building, prompting a long and expensive excavation. But later that year a new officer taking charge of the case said there had never been compelling evidence to justify the dig.
Despite lurid reports suggesting torture and murder at the home no evidence emerged to support this. Of 170 bone fragments removed from site only three were found to be possibly human – two of those dating back as far as 1470, and the other two between 1650 and 1950.
Couple jailed for Jersey care home assaults