The UK Played A Part In Haut de la Garenne

MP John Hemming has discovered his local city council sent children to Jersey and believes other children from the UK were also placed in care there.

At least five children were illegally placed in care on Jersey by Birmingham social services, which then lost track of them.

Four of the youngsters - who are now adults - are still on the island and have been traced by local police. But the whereabouts of the fifth, a male born in the Fifties, remains unknown.

Hemming also said: 'The Government has refused to order councils to check properly because it does not want to open a can of worms, on the links between abusers in England and Jersey.'

The Birmingham council found it made payments between 1960 and 1990 to Jersey for childcare. It found only one social work file on a single child; no other records exist.

Schools Minister Kevin Brennan has told the Commons that checks are unnecessary because children from the UK cannot be placed in care in Jersey without a court order. Yet the five Birmingham children were sent to Jersey without such orders.

Hemmings has called for all councils to check their records; some have flatly refused!

Key staff members of Islington in North London were from Jersey or had strong ties to Jersey. Islington council told Hemmings it would cost too much money to check its records! Islington suffered it’s own pornography and pedophile scandal.

Liz Davies, the former Islington senior social worker said: 'It is becoming clear that children at Haut de la Garenne were sent on holiday to children's homes in England which were also notorious for abuse, while the children in the English homes they went to were sent to Haut de la Garenne. They literally swapped beds.'

'Children in care are often shipped about, and pedophiles love placing them far from home.'

The Government has refused to the call for councils to check records until after the summer break!

Hemmings said: 'They are stalling because they are embarrassed by the size of the problem, and because it involves English authorities, too.'

Mail On Sunday