This documentary is two years old and about a scandal that is even older. I vaguely recall reports from 2007 and 2017 but this documentary reveals how appalling the child abuse was and how the island’s “rulers” used their powers to change the narrative.
Dark Secrets of a Trillion Dollar Island: Garenne tells the extraordinary story of the child abuse scandal that erupted on the idyllic island of Jersey in 2007. For a long time, the victims’ voices had remained unheard, but when widespread allegations of sexual abuse resurfaced in the late 2000s, Jersey’s then health minister Stuart Syvret spoke out about the scale of this historic child abuse and the damage done to the victims.
Syvret’s words sparked a moment of reckoning for the small community, whose leaders were determined to protect the island’s reputation, home to a trillion dollars in offshore investment. This discreet offshore tax haven found itself in the middle of a major police investigation as the world’s media descended on the island, creating a media circus. In the midst of all this, the community became divided, with one group fearful that the scandal would drive investors away, and another demanding justice for the victims.
As bitterness and enmity drag on and the press desert Jersey, two unlikely bloggers decide to reignite the smouldering, unresolved issues. Teaming up with former police officers, survivors and supporters, they fight for the voices of the survivors to be heard, digging up past evidence and recording first-hand testimonials. In the process, they force the island to confront its past.
The Jersey care home inquiry, which exposed failings within the care home system going back to the end of the second world war, severely criticised the island’s politicians for failing children in their care over last 70 years.
It claimed that in some instances the island’s leaders were more concerned about preserving the “Jersey way” – its age-old traditions – than making sure its most vulnerable children were cared for.
The inquiry said that for decades there were persistent failures at all levels in the management, operation and governance of children’s homes in Jersey. The States of Jersey, the island’s parliament and government, proved to be an “ineffectual and neglectful substitute parent” for children already disadvantaged in life.
It also found that some children were put into care without lawful basis, including for petty theft and for being rude. And it found that, once in care, children, some of whom suffered physical and sexual abuse, were “effectively abandoned in the care system” and “left powerless for decades”.
It’s likely that there’s more under the carpet but the perpetrators and victims have long since died.