| MORE THAN 300 islanders and officials packed the church at Gouray on Jersey on Tuesday evening for a service of prayer and reflection, after the grisly discovery of the remains of a child at a former children’s home nearby in Haut de la Garenne just days earlier.
The Dean of Jersey, the Very Revd Robert Key, preached at what was described as a “Service of Prayer for God’s help in this community of Jersey at a time of need”. The past few days had brought into stark focus the sadness of the island at the continuing inquiry into abuse, he said on Wednesday. The investigation had been launched by the police more than 12 months ago.
“The issue has very rarely been out of the Jersey public eye, with questions regularly asked about things in the islands,” he said. “In my sermon, I urged people that, just as abuse victims cry out to God for justice, then anyone with stories to tell needs to come forward and give the police that information.”
As the senior churchman on Jersey, Dean Key sits in the island’s parliament and has asked questions there about the abuse inquiry. He has met what he describes as “the equal and opposite comments” of those who have been on the island a long time and say they have never known anything amiss, and of those who say they have “always known something was wrong”.
Both these views were being heard widely, he said, though he emphasised that life on Jersey was going on “absolutely as normal. People are very concerned and determined that there should be no place in Jersey for an abuser to hide, but also determined that this cannot be allowed to take over the whole island.”
Canon Dr Peter Williams, Hon. Curate of Gouray, described Tuesday’s swiftly arranged service as “packed, serious, solemn, engaged”. It was attended by some of the island’s highest officials, including the Chief Minister, the Lieutenant Governor, the Deputy Bailiff, and the Council of Ministers.
“The passage was Matthew 18.1-14, where the Lord talks about those who cause little ones to stumble,” said Dean Key. “There is a demand from Christ to give children fulfilling childhoods, and because Jesus goes on to tell the story of the shepherd seeking the lost, there is a message there of hope and healing.”
The people of Jersey expected the Dean to take a moral lead, he said: “I do feel that sense of tradition; that actually one tries to speak in God’s name to the people, and to take the people’s concerns to God in our prayers. That’s what we were doing last night.”
The remains have not been identified, and excavation is being resumed at a cellar in the former children’s home. In the event of a lack of identification, the Dean would be entrusted with giving directions for the burial.
In the mean time, Dean Key said: “The most important thing we are all trying to do across the denominations is to provide pastoral care for those who themselves, or their parents and even grandparents, went through the Haut de la Garenne regime.”
Some of the media coverage had been “extremely serious, well balanced, and genuinely investigative”; some had been “sensationalist and not terribly accurate”. |
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