How Could You? Hall of Shame-Michael Laing case and Others in Jersey CareUPDATED

By on 8-15-2014 in Abuse in foster care, Clos des Sables, How could you? Hall of Shame, Michael Laing, Michael Lang, UK

How Could You? Hall of Shame-Michael Laing case and Others in Jersey CareUPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Jersey,UK, former ward Michael Laing, 60, says he was abused at first foster family’s home ,at a hospital and by the son of another foster family .

“A Jersey man who spent his entire childhood in care told an inquiry he was abused in two foster homes.

Michael Laing, 60, said his first foster family, from the age of three, beat him regularly and gagged him with soiled bedding.

Mr Laing said he was happiest in the island’s notorious Haut de la Garenne children’s home.

The Independent Jersey Care Inquiry is investigating historical abuse allegations in Jersey’s care system.

From 1957, Mr Laing lived with four different foster families and spent two periods in Haut de la Garenne.

The home, which closed in 1986, is at the centre of sex abuse allegations.

Mr Laing said his first foster family, between the ages of three and seven, was “deeply religious” and beat him because he was born out of wedlock.

He said he was left “in a state of shock” after being sexually abused by a member of staff during a two-month stay in hospital.

Mr Laing said as a teenager, he was sexually abused for 18 months by the son of another foster family.

‘Breaking point’

He did not tell anyone about his treatment for many years.

“My life was kaleidoscopic; I was capable of blocking it out,” he said.

“That’s how it was all the way through. I wouldn’t have known what to say.”

Mr Laing said he eventually reached breaking point and pushed his teenage abuser through a window.

He quickly became withdrawn and left school.

Malcolm Carver, 78, appeared before the inquiry via video link from Wales.

He spent two spells in Haut de la Garenne in the late 1940s and said he did not believe there was any abuse.

“We were worldly-wise; we would have noticed,” he said.

Mr Carver said life in the home was necessarily strict but good preparation for his 10-year career in the army.”

Jersey inquiry witness describes foster home sex abuse[Bbc 8/14/14]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

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Update:“Jersey’s Care Inquiry panel are hearing from former care home residents today.

60-year-old Michael Laing returned to give evidence. He claims to have suffered sexual, physical and emotional abuse during his time in foster care in the 1950s and 1960s.In the last hearing, the panel heard about Mr Laing’s time in care as a child, whereas today he moved on to telling Francis Oldham QC and her colleagues about his adult life.

He recounted failings he felt he had suffered when he tried to get psychological help.

Mr Laing said, “I was an emotional wreck as far as relationships were concerned, and different things, and I needed to go and talk to somebody.”

He said he did not feel he had the confidence in himself or in the doctor to confide the abuse he had suffered over the years.

While giving evidence today, Mr Laing was very critical of the Children’s Services department. He said there was no relationship between staff and children, where they could feel comfortable enough to say if something was wrong.

He told the panel, “There wasn’t any duty of care, we were numbers on a board – out of sight, out of mind.

“They seemed very quick to place you somewhere which wasn’t necessarily in the best interest of the child concerned, including me.

“I realise the times were different and you didn’t have Childline or those facilities.

“[With Children’s Services] there was never any follow through. They never looked at the reason of why things happened.

“In the occasion there were problems they never came to ask me ‘what’s going on?'”

Emotionally vulnerable he tried to move on with his life, but says the time he spent in the care of Jersey States left him as a standoffish person and he did not allow himself to get close to anyone.

As a result, the Care Inquiry hearings are the first time Mr Laing has spoken out about the atrocities he says he suffered.

He contacted the States of Jersey Police initially in 2008 following the investigations at Haut de la Garenne.

He said it was not the opportunity to see criminal charges brought against his attackers, but in defence of the home.

The children’s home was a place of solace for him and although Mr Laing described it as a tough place, where there was bullying among the boys, he told the panel he did not personally witness any abuse from staff.

The police reports were then investigated by the panel, with Mr Laing highlighting parts of the documents he says are not true – including comments about the abuse he suffered in his foster homes.

Mr Laing was upset to discover there were claims in addition to his comments which he said unfairly put the care home in a bad light.

At a previous hearing, Mr Laing told the panel he was in and out of foster and care homes from birth, up until the age of 18 and while some of those times in those foster homes and at Haut De La Garenne passed without incident, there was one family in particular who were harsh, violent and cruel.

He came to them when he was just three years old. He told the inquiry it was a strict, resentful household and if Michael had ever soiled himself, his dirty underwear was shoved in his mouth to act as a gag, while he was beaten with a wooden stick, slipper or by hand.

He said: “I think it was their religious beliefs. Being illegitimate, they thought they were beating the badness out of me.”

Frances Oldham QC is the top UK barrister charged with heading up the inquiry.

The panel hopes many victims will share their stories over the coming months so that they can try to piece together the true extent of abuse in Jersey over the last seven decades.

The inquiry has already heard from a number of expert witnesses who have given background information about how children’s homes were run over the past century.

As the weeks progress, the inquiry will continue to hear from those who suffered abuse as children, those who worked in the care system and those accused of abuse.

The £6 million Jersey Care Inquiry is investigating back to 1945.”

 

Jersey Care Inquiry continues[Channel One 9/3/14]

Update 2: “The care inquiry panel have heard from a witness who claims to have suffered emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of her foster parents.

The witness, known as Miss B, was looked after by her grandmother and grandfather when she was a baby but she feels that her grandparents were bullied into putting her into care.

She was placed with a foster family at the age of three, she claims she was unhappy because the foster mother was unkind to her.

Miss B said that Children’s Services “did not visit very often” and when they did they never spoke to her alone, always with the foster mother present. She therefore never had an opportunity to tell them how she was really feeling.

She compared the foster mother to the mother in the horror film ‘Carrie’. The foster mother was a Catholic and very religious. Miss B said she was forced to go to church.

She claims her foster mother would regularly speak badly about her real family, especially her mother and that made her feel very unhappy.

She said her foster father was very kind to her. He did most of the ‘caring’ as the foster mother was an alcoholic. The witness said: “In the mornings my foster mum would come down and pour herself a vodka lemonade.”

She said she is surprised Children’s Services did not pick up on this and says they must have known. She is surprised an alcoholic woman was allowed to become a foster mother.

Miss B maintained contact with her own real parents and their families growing up and moved in with her real father aged 16 as she was then allowed to decide whether or not she wanted to remain in the foster home.

She has maintained contact with foster parents throughout life. The witness has never spoken to them directly about how she felt growing up. Her foster father has since died and her foster mother is now elderly and does not know Miss B is giving evidence.

The £6 million Jersey Care Inquiry is investigating back to 1945.

As the weeks progress, the inquiry will continue to hear from those who suffered abuse as children, those who worked in the care system and those accused of abuse.”

Foster child suffered ’emotional’ abuse[ITV 9/10/14 ]

“Giving evidence anonymously, Miss B said she was now surprised the 13-year placement was allowed.

A neighbour worked for children’s services and knew the foster mother drank heavily, she said.

Miss B said her own son is now in foster care but children’s services is much better nowadays

“My foster mum was an alcoholic and I believe her behaviour towards me amounted to emotional abuse”

Miss BCare inquiry witness

Now in her 40s, the woman was fostered at the age of three when her real mother, then aged 17, was “railroaded” into giving her up.

‘Emotionally abusive’

She said her 13 years with the foster family had been unhappy and caused her to miss out on her real family’s lives.

Her foster mother was “emotionally abusive”, said Miss B, although she was very close to her foster father, who made breakfast and got the children ready for school.

She never experienced physical abuse but said her foster mother favoured her adopted foster brother, imposed a strict Catholic lifestyle and bad-mouthed her real family.

The woman told the inquiry the experience had left her without the emotional and practical skills to properly look after her own children, one of whom is now in care.

She said social workers’ interventions with her own son were much more positive than when she was in care.

“My foster mum was an alcoholic and I believe her behaviour towards me amounted to emotional abuse,” said Miss B.

“I believe that my life has been messed up as a result. I’ve always felt quite immature and attention-seeking. I never learned any life skills.

“If I had the right foster parents, if it had been somebody else, I think I could have learned from a proper family set up.”

The Independent Jersey Care Inquiry is investigating child abuse in Jersey’s care system since 1945.

It will focus on – but is not restricted to – the Haut de la Garenne care home during the 1960s.”

Jersey care inquiry: Fostered woman ’emotionally abused’[BBC 9/10/14]

Update 3:“A woman who reported being sexually abused from the age of six says officials should have spotted something was wrong.

At the Jersey care inquiry on Friday, “Miss D” described her time in the Clos des Sables group foster home.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, group homes housed small numbers of children in “families” run by paid carers.

One of those “house parents”, Leslie Hughes, sexually abused children in his care over a 16 year period.

He was jailed for three years in 1989 after pleading guilty to a number of offences.

Self-harm

Miss D said she was assaulted by Hughes in the 1980s on her first night at the home when she was aged six.

Over the next few years the assaults became more frequent and severe but stopped when she was about ten, she said.

The panel heard her child care officer, Marnie Baudains, became concerned when Miss D began self-harming, drinking and taking drugs when she was 15.

It was then she told Mrs Baudains everything that had happened to her.

Miss D told the inquiry she was speaking up because she did not want other children in care to go through the same thing.

She questioned why no-one in the care system recognised her behaviour was a sign things were not right at the group foster home.

The Independent Jersey Care Inquiry is investigating allegations of abuse in the island’s care system from 1945 to the present day.

The inquiry continues.”

Jersey care inquiry: Carer abused girl, six, in group home [BBC NEWS 10/3/14 ]

Update 4:”A woman was “sexually abused every night” by her foster father, the Jersey care inquiry has heard.

The victim, who cannot be named, was fostered by Jane and Allan Maguire, who had run the Blanche Pierre group care home until 1990.

She said in a police statement in 1997, she suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Mr Maguire.

Allan Maguire died in France in 2009 and BBC News has been unable to contact Jane Maguire.

The witness’ statement was read at the inquiry by counsel Patrick Sadd.

She said Mr Maguire sexually assaulted her every night and she would hide under her bed to try to keep away from him.

She said Mrs Maguire had treated her as a slave

Her statement said: “I never told anyone about what happened to me at the Maguires’ home.

“For years I thought it was my fault, that I had done something wrong and the abuse was Allan’s payback.”

She said the sexual abuse was from when she was aged 10 to 12, although it did happen once when she was seven and living with the Maguires at the Blanche Pierre home.

When the home closed she said she was taken to live with the couple, which felt like she had been kidnapped because her father, who was still alive at the time, had not been asked to sign anything or agree to the fostering.

The inquiry was shown documents that suggested her father was aware of the fostering arrangement and was in favour of the transfer.

It said the victim was also keen on the transfer at the time, but she disputed that in her police statement.

The inquiry continues.”

Jersey foster child ‘abused by carers’, inquiry hears[BBC News 11/21/14]

Update 5:“The notorious Haut de la Garenne children’s home in Jersey should be demolished, a long-awaited report into abuse and mistreatment of youngsters on the island has recommended.

In its final report the inquiry, chaired by Frances Oldham QC, said the buildings were “a reminder of an unhappy past or shameful history for many people”.

It added that “consideration [should] be given as to how the buildings can be demolished and that any youth or outdoor activity or services for children located on the site should be in modern buildings bearing no resemblance to what went before”.

The report found that the care system on the island had been dogged by long-running failings caused by “state indifference” and a failure to keep up with modern social care practice.

There was “an absence of political and professional will to set or monitor standards of care”, it said, and the island’s care homes did not develop the standards which were widespread in the rest of the world.

Multiple children’s homes are criticised by the report, which found that some of them subjected children to an “abusive” regime which was devoid of affection and did not prioritise their wellbeing and happiness.

The report concludes: “Unsuitable people who were appointed to management roles, often on the basis of local connections, lacked the leadership skills to manage and raise practice standards and had little up-to-date knowledge of child care theory and practice.

“As a result, ill-suited carers continued to look after children in unsuitable facilities, using outdated practices. The consequences for the children in their care were devastating and, in many instances, lifelong”.

There was also no way for children to report allegations of abuse until the 1990s, and many were too afraid to speak out, it said, and  a “patrician and hierarchical” society in which “children in care were marginalised” contributed to a culture of disbelief.

Recommendations in multiple reports commissioned into what happened in the Jersey care system have been ignored, it added.

In Jersey Home for Boys and Jersey Home for Girls, children were subject to a regime in the late 1950s that had been substantially unchanged since 1924.

Children were subject to “cruel and degrading punishments” such as being “humiliated and beaten with nettles for bedwetting”, the report found.

At one of the most notorious care homes, Blanche Pierre, children lived in an “oppressive and fearful” environment, and house parents Jane and Alan Maguire had an “inexcusable” approach to bedwetting which constituted “humiliating and degrading treatment”, it said.

It added that Mrs Maguire’s friendship with senior child care officer Brenda Chappell was “unprofessional” because it prevented proper scrutiny of the home.

Jane and Alan Maguire were charged with abusing children but police dropped the case in 1998 due to a lack of evidence.

Another school, Les Chênes was “managed in a strict and physically dominant way”, it said.

Child protection groups said recommendations including a new Commissioner for Children and Children’s Rights Officer, and an “empowered” inspectorate making regular inspections of children’s homes should be “implemented without delay”.

The report also said that Jersey’s residency rules could be relaxed to make finding quality staff easier, and new legislation should be introduced to ensure that the island keeps up-to-date with neighbouring countries.

An spokesman for the NSPCC said: “Appallingly children who spoke out about abuse were not listened to and those in authority failed to act as part of a culture of fear. Recommendations to improve Jersey’s care systems were not just missed but were ignored.”

The inquiry was set up to establish what went wrong over many years in the care system on the island, which has been rocked by horrific revelations of sex abuse against children in care.

The most notorious of them was Haut de la Garenne, dubbed “the house of horrors”, where hundreds of crimes were carried out over decades before it was shut in the 1980s.

Paedophile Jimmy Savile was implicated in the home’s shady past, with an allegation received by police in 2008 that an indecent assault occurred there in the 1970s. But it was decided there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

The States of Jersey asked the inquiry to probe the abuse and mistreatment of youngsters placed in children’s homes and in foster care on the island from the Second World War.

In December 2010, the island’s chief minister Terry Le Sueur issued a formal apology to all victims who suffered in the states’ residential care system.

The apology followed the end of an investigation by the States of Jersey Police, codenamed Operation Rectangle, into historical child sexual, emotional and physical abuse in institutions.

The probe reported 553 alleged offences between September 2007 and December 2010 – and most, 315, were reported to have been committed at the Haut de la Garenne.

Police identified 151 named offenders and 192 victims but just eight people were prosecuted for 145 offences, with seven convictions. Four of them related to Haut de la Garenne.

The probe left the reputation of the island’s police tarnished with claims of murders at Haut de la Garenne made in 2008 later discredited after a piece of “skull” was found to be coconut and what had been called “punishment rooms” where children were tortured were found to be too small for an adult to stand up in.

hen in 2013, the States Assembly agreed terms of reference for a public inquiry to carry out a wide-ranging investigation into the historical abuse in Jersey.

Inquiry chair Frances Oldham QC promised a “robust and fearless” examination of what went wrong and to find answers for the victims.

At a preliminary hearing in 2014, Ms Oldham said they would investigate what abuse took place, whether it was reported and what was done, and whether abuse was covered up.

She also promised to review the actions of the police, the justice system, politicians and the various government agencies to consider how each responded to child abuse in Jersey.

Three phases of hearings were held in public in St Helier between July 2014 and June 2016.”

Jersey’s ‘house of horrors’ children’s home should be demolished, abuse inquiry report concludes

[Telegraph 7/3/17 by Olivia Rudgard]

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