Stuart Syvret was sacked after exposing abuse in a children’s home. In a later speech to parliament, his microphone was switched off and members walked out. This is an edited version of what he said:

“What Jersey had tolerated in its midst was a culture of disregard, abandonment and contempt for children, especially those children in need; the vulnerable; the defenceless. Such is the climate of fear that victims, witnesses and decent staff experienced, that very many of the meetings I have taken part in have had to be arranged in great secrecy.

I went about the back streets, the housing estates, the tenement blocks, the foul, overcrowded and exploitative ‘lodging houses’ in which the poor in Jersey often dwell. In the early stages of this odyssey — this drizzle-soaked, sodium-lit quest amongst the night roads and back alleys of St Helier, in the unspoken underbelly of Jersey — I realised what I was seeking, and finding, were ghosts. Although many are in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, I cannot but see them as children still. Many of them have passed through the States of Jersey ‘system’: I cannot bring myself to use the phrase ‘care’.

Some ended up in custody for minor offences, and such was the cruelty, abuse, neglect and violence they suffered, many went on to become habitual criminals. When many of these explained their criminal lifestyles, they did so with humility, many candidly used the phrase ‘we were no angels’.

I cannot look at these people and not ask myself the awful question, ‘had these vulnerable, confused and angry children been treated with love and respect and care by the States, perhaps they would have avoided criminal lifestyles; perhaps they would not be — in many cases — alcoholics, drug addicts, often broken and shattered beings.’

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