Quote from Daily
Mail article below!
"He feared
a cover-up: many ring members were powerful and
wealthy. But I did not think him paranoid: I
specialised in exposing child abuse scandals and
knew, from separate sources, of men apparently linked
to this ring.
They included
an aristocrat, clerics and a social services chief.
Their friends included senior police officers."
Claims have
been made on TV that there is a link with Northern
Ireland!
I would like to
know: "What are these links? Is there a
connection with the Kincora Boys Home in Belfast?
Jersey police, headed curiously by a former RUC
officer, (which makes me suspect a cover-up might be
in progress!) have not as far as I recall elucidated
on this claim!
I say to all
those people who want complete transparency in this
case:Make sure that there will be no cover-up!
Kincora was covered up! Make sure it doesnt happen in
the Jersey case!
See: The Kincora
Scandal The Kincora Scandal
I published a
book in Dec 2002 called "Disappeared off the
face of the earth" . In it I outlined my
discoveries of incredible information relating to the
Kincora Scandal! My information connects an
aristocratic family living in the Irish Republic to
the Kincora Boys Home! It also exposes the true
reason why a Northern Ireland politician was murdered
during the Troubles in the north!
See: "Controversial book -
\Disappeared off the face of the earth\! Disappeared off the
face of the earth"
Article copied
from The
Daily Mail
'I have known about Jersey paedophiles for 15
years,' says award-winning journalist
By EILEEN FAIRWEATHER - More
by this author » Last updated at 11:13am on 2nd
March 2008
Comments (31)
The award-winning journalist who exposed
terrible abuse in Islington children's homes now
reveals horrifying links to sinister discoveries at
Jersey's Haut de la Garenne.
I met the frightened policeman at an isolated
country restaurant, many miles from his home and
station. Detective Constable Peter Cook had finally
despaired, and decided to blow the whistle to a
reporter.
He was risking his career, so made me scribble my
notes into a tiny pad beneath the tablecloth.
He had uncovered a vicious child sex ring, with
victims in both Britain and the Channel Islands, and
he wanted me to get his information to police abuse
specialists in London.
Scroll down for more
Tragic truth: Eileen Fairweather's tenacious
investigations of abuse revealed links to Jersey
Incredibly, he claimed that his superiors had
barred him from alerting them.
He feared a cover-up: many ring members were
powerful and wealthy. But I did not think him
paranoid: I specialised in exposing child abuse
scandals and knew, from separate sources, of men
apparently linked to this ring.
They included an aristocrat, clerics and a social
services chief. Their friends included senior police
officers.
Repeatedly, inquiries by junior detectives were
closed down, so I, a journalist, was asked to convey
confidential information from one police officer to
others. It seemed surreal.
Scroll down for more
House of Horror: Forensic experts search the area
of the Haut de la Garenne home, where a child's
remains were found
I duly met trusted contacts at the National
Criminal-Intelligence Squad. That was more than 12
years ago, and little happened - until now.
Last weekend, a child's remains were found at a
former children's home on Jersey amid claims of a
paedophile ring.
More than 200 children who lived at Haut de la
Garenne have described horrific sexual and physical
torture dating back to the Sixties.
When I heard the news, my eyes filled with tears.
I felt heartbroken, not least at my own
powerlessness. I have known for more than 15 years
about Channel Islands paedophiles victimising
children in the British care system.
Scroll down for more
I was relieved that the truth was finally
emerging. But I felt devastated. Children had
probably been murdered. I had so not wanted to be
right.
I stood outside the forbidding Victorian building
of Haut de la Garenne this week and watched
grim-faced police in blue plastic forensic suits hunt
its bricked-up secret basements for children's bones.
Outside, a large cross commemorates the 35 former
residents who died fighting for their country:
"Their names liveth forever." Oh yes?
What are the names of the children whose bodies
may now be dug up - and why did no one miss and
search for them earlier? Jersey's residents and
political class must ask these questions.
Scroll down for more
Disturbing allegations about the murder of
children in care have characterised other scandals I
investigated in Britain, but today I can reveal for
the first time the links between the abuse I
uncovered at care homes in Islington, North London,
and the horrifying discoveries on Jersey.
I have never before written that 14-year-old Jason
Swift, killed in 1985 by a paedophile gang, is
believed to have lived in Islington council's
Conewood Street home.
Two sources claimed this when I investigated
Islington's 12 care homes for The Mail on Sunday's
sister paper, the London Evening Standard, in the
early Nineties.
But hundreds of children's files mysteriously
disappeared in Islington and, without documentation,
this was not evidence enough.
Scroll down for more
Haut de la Garenne children's home, pictured in
1905, in Jersey was formerly a centre for children in
care or with behaviour problems
We did, however, prove that every home included
staff who were paedophiles, child pornographers or
pimps. Concerned police secretly confirmed that
several Islington workers were believed
"networkers", major operators in the supply
of children for abuse and pornography.
Some of these were from the Channel Islands or
regularly took Islington children there on unofficial
visits. In light of the grisly discoveries at Haut de
la Garenne, the link now seems significant, but at
the time we were so overwhelmed by abuse allegations
nearer home that this connection never emerged.
What we did report prompted the sort of vehement
official denials that have come to characterise child
abuse claims. Margaret Hodge, then council leader,
denounced us as Right-wing "gutter
journalists" who supposedly bribed children to
lie.
Our findings were eventually vindicated by
Government-ordered inquiries, and two British Press
Awards. Yet I knew we had only scraped the surface of
Islington's corruption.
Now Jersey police under deputy chief Lenny Harper
- a 'new broom' outsider - have been secretly
investigating a paedophile ring linked to the
island's care homes for months, I have been struck by
common factors with the British abuse scandals:
innocent-sounding sailing trips, where children can
be isolated and abused, away from prying eyes, then
delivered to other abusers; the familiar smearing of
whistle-blowers; and the suppression of damning
reports.
Jersey social worker Simon Bellwood was sacked
early last year after speaking out, and popular
health minister Stuart Syvret, 42, was fired in
November after publicising the suppressed Sharp
Report into abuse allegations.
"The smears on me are water off a duck's
back," this brave man told me yesterday in a St
Helier cafe. But his hands shook.
I have never assumed that the officials,
politicians and police who cover up abuse scandals
are all paedophiles, nor does Syvret.
"They just want a quiet life and their
competency unquestioned. I'm angrier with them than
the abusers, and want several prosecuted for
obstructing the course of justice. The police are
considering charges," he added.
Traditionally, police fear paedophile ring
inquiries as expensive and unproductive. Traumatised
witnesses can be hazy and collapse under
cross-examination.
Convictions are rare. Police therefore raid
suspected abusers for paedophile pornography, which
more easily yields convictions.
Well - in theory. In June 1991, police in
Cambridgeshire raided the home of Neil Hocquart who
abused children in Britain and Guernsey and, with a
social worker from Jersey, supplied child pornography
for a huge sex ring.
It should have been a major breakthrough. But, as
DC Cook told me, it went horribly wrong.
A handful of child sex-ring victims become
"recruiters". They are not beaten but
rewarded with gifts,
money and 'love'. In return, their job is to
procure other victims. Such a man, my whistle-blower
believed, was Neil Frederick Hocquart.
Hocquart, original surname Foster, was abused
while in care in Norfolk and was eventually
'befriended' by an older man, merchant seaman Captain
H. Hocquart of Vale, in Guernsey, whose surname he
adopted.
Captain Hocquart was not the only Channel Islands
man with an interest in children in care. Satan
worshipper Edward Paisnel, "The Beast of
Jersey", was given a 30-year sentence in 1971 on
13 counts of raping girls and boys. The building
contractor fostered children and played Father
Christmas at Haut de la Garenne in the Sixties.
Edward Paisnel
Cambridgeshire police, in a joint operation with
Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad (now the
Paedophile Unit), raided Neil Hocquart's Swaffham
Manor home in June 1991.
They found more than 100 child-sex videos and 300
photographs of children. At nearby Ely they found his
friend, Walter Clack, trying to dispose of a sick
home video of a middle-aged man abusing a boy.
Who were the children in these films and photos?
Police needed properly to question these men. But
they never got the chance.
Hocquart secretly took an overdose of
anti-depressant dothiepin and died at Addenbrooke's
Hospital soon after his arrest. Was his suicide a
last act of loyalty?
DC Cook told me incredulously that a senior
officer broke with normal procedure and informed
Clack, before he was questioned, that the other
suspect was dead. Clack then blamed the dead man for
everything, and escaped with a £5,000 fine - and
inherited one third of Hocquart's wealth, at his
bequest.
Wills featured strongly in the fortunesof the
Islington and Channel Islands paedophiles. Police
discovered that Neil Hocquart inherited his wealth
from the Guernsey sea captain.
But Captain Hocquart possibly paid dearly for
befriending orphans: he died soon after making out
his will in the younger man's favour.
Scotland Yard detectives told me they found at
least "two or three" wills of older men who
died of apparent heart attacks shortly after leaving
everything to Neil Hocquart.
The officers cheerfully called him a
"murderer". These deaths were never
investigated: the suspect, after all, was now also
dead.
Hocquart wasn't the only person in his circle to
become rich this way. A Jersey-born friend of
Hocquart's, who started his childcare career on the
island before becoming a key supplier of children
from Islington's care homes to paedophile rings,
similarly inherited a fortune.
Nicholas John Rabet was for many years deputy
superintendent of Islington council's home at 114
Grosvenor Avenue.
He and a colleague, another single man later
barred from social work by the Department of Health,
both took children on unauthorised trips to Jersey.
Allegations mounted but nothing was done.
Rabet's opportunities to obtain victims massively
increased after he befriended the widow of an
American oil millionaire. She died after rewriting
her will in his favour.
He inherited her manor house at Cross in Hand near
Heathfield, Sussex, where he opened a children's
activity centre, and regularly invited children in
Islington's care to stay.
Hocquart spent £13,000 on quad bikes for the
centre, called The Stables, and he and Walter Clack
became "volunteers" there.
Hocquart befriended one young boy and took him on
a sailing trip, where there would be little risk of
being spotted. Police found disturbing film from the
trip of men spraying the naked child with water.
But Hocquart left the boy another third of his
money, and he denied abuse when questioned.
Police also found at Hocquart's home naked photos
of a boy of about ten, whom they learned was in the
care of Islington social services. I shall call him
Shane.
Sussex police raided Rabet's children's centre.
But he had plenty of warning and, they believed,
emptied it of child pornography. However officers
still found a "shrine to boys", with
suggestive photographs everywhere, including pictures
of Shane.
They approached Shane, at his Islington children's
home. He tearfully confirmed months of abuse. But
their attempts to investigate further were thwarted
by Islington Council.
Many professionals had, for years, expressed grave
fears about Rabet, and put their concerns in writing.
But Islington falsely told Sussex officers it had no
file material on Rabet or his alleged victim.
Staff had in fact been ordered to find the
complaints and deliver them to the office of Lyn
Cusack, Islington's assistant director of social
services - but they were handed over to Sussex police
only when I revealed their existence.
Islington's appalling mishandling of vital records
was highlighted by the independent White inquiry into
the abuse in Islington children's homes, which found
that "at assistant director level . . . many
confidential files were destroyed by mistake,
although there is no evidence of conspiracy."
During the investigation into Rabet, Islington
also refused to interview any other children in care,
or, scandalously, help Sussex police identify other
children in Rabet's photos.
With only Shane's evidence to rely on, police
decided not to prosecute.
I traced Shane. He was furious that Rabet was
never prosecuted, but not surprised. "This goes
right to the top," he said, "You have no
idea how big this is."
He showed me photos of another victim, a young
Turkish boy with a sweet shy smile whom Rabet also
regularly took from the Islington home to spend
weekends at his manor house.
Shane didn't know where the boy was now, he just
disappeared. I was never able to find the boy,
either. Many children in care are missed by no one.
I retraced Shane two years ago to tell him that
justice had finally caught up with Rabet. Third World
police had succeeded where Britain's finest in
Cambridgeshire, Sussex, London and Jersey had failed.
Rabet fled to Thailand's notorious child sex
resort of Pattaya after the White inquiry. He was
arrested there in spring 2006 and charged with
abusing 30 boys, some as young as six.
Thai police believed he had abused at least 300.
But he was never tried: on May 12, 2006, Rabet died
of an overdose at the age of 57.
Two other Jersey-born social workers, who for
legal reasons I cannot name, also worked in Islington
and later with young offenders.
One arranged more of those mysterious sailing
trips to Guernsey, the other sent children to Rabet's
centre. Both were accused of abuse.
In 1995, we reinvestigated Rabet and met DC Cook
at the restaurant. He had gone through Hocquart's
papers, investigated other members of the paedophile
ring and met their victims. He was horrified at what
he discovered.
One man, for example, married a single mother
purely so he could abuse her two young sons.
"He told these poor children to keep quiet,
that their mother had been lonely so long they would
ruin her life if they said anything," the
officer told me.
The vicar who married them knew the groom was a
paedophile but did not care: he was one too, and got
his victims from a British care home.
DC Cook travelled to Guernsey, which Hocquart
regularly visited. There local CID officers drove him
round, and he met two brothers whom Hocquart abused,
then delivered them to a high-ranking, respected
local man to rape.
DC Cook traced another distraught victim in
England who provided invaluable information about the
man, based in Wales, who copied the ring's child
pornography for distribution.
This man clearly needed his door kicked in by
police, as did Hocquart's other contacts in Britain
and the Channel Islands. But no action was taken.
Then word came from on high to drop his inquiries.
DC Cook accepted that there might be an innocent
explanation - that his local force might not want the
financial burden of a national investigation.
But he became deeply troubled when told not to
forward his vital intelligence to specialist officers
elsewhere.
Britain's new National Criminal Intelligence Squad
(NCIS) had the job of disseminating intelligence on
paedophiles across the country. Would I, asked the
troubled officer, take his information to the squad's
Paedophile Unit for him?
And so we pretended to share a meal while I
secretly scribbled down the names, addresses, dates
of birth and believed victims of dozens of suspects.
My diary records that I met NCIS on January 4,
1996, at 10.30am, and I also channelled the
intelligence to Scotland Yard. Neither,
unfortunately, had the power to make local forces
take action, so I was not optimistic.
This was not the first time I had acted as a
go-between. In 1994, another police officer was
barred from investigating a paedophile ring, which
included an Islington social worker of Channel
Islands origin.
We alerted Scotland Yard. This man was, I learned,
involved with five overlapping paedophile rings - but
he has never been convicted.
Peter Cook has now retired and agreed to go on the
record. He told me the partner of Hocquart's video
producer was eventually imprisoned for abusing his
own sons. "But we could have stopped so much
else, so much earlier," he said.
"The news from Jersey is horrifying. I've
thought of Rabet all week. The hierarchy does not
like these inquiries, they're expensive and produce
embarrassment, so people shove it all under the
carpet, they don't want to know even when children
are dying.
"There will be people now crawling out
claiming they were always worried. What cowards, what
bastards!"
Jersey police confirmed this week it was aware of
Nick Rabet and keen to learn more about his friends.
Peter Cook told me: "I will help all I
can."
Michael Hames, the former head of Scotland Yard's
Obscene Publications Squad, once told me that he
never doubted paedophiles were killing children in
care.
But the climate of disbelief was fierce, and he
asked sadly: "What police chief will dare risk
his career by hiring JCBs [to search for the
bodies]?"
Courageous Ulsterman Lenny Harper has. Deposed
Jersey health minister Stuart Syvret told me:
"My family has lived here since William the
Conqueror. But if an indigenous police officer were
in charge, this investigation would never have
happened. Jersey is an oligarchy, where the elite
look after each other."
When I flew home late last night, in time for
Mother's Day, I felt utter relief.
This tiny island with its high-hedged lanes looked
so pretty when the police series Bergerac was filmed
here, but to me said just one thing: that there is no
escape from here for a terrified child.
If witnesses who want, finally, to help these
tragically un-mothered children, now is the time to
speak out.
• Historical Abuse Enquiry Team: 0800
7357777