Graphic: the children's home and its cellars

A pair of shackles has been found in the bricked-up cellar of a Jersey children’s home where hundreds of former residents claim they were victims of sexual and physical abuse.

The shackles were discovered yesterday in the 12ft square and 8ft deep cellar of the Haut de la Garenne where a sniffer dog has indicated the possible presence of human remains. The room also contains a bath.

The former home is at the centre of a child abuse investigation involving more than 160 alleged victims and 40 suspects from the 1960s until its closure in 1986.

Police have confirmed that they are speaking to all former employees at Haut de la Garenne, which will include Mario Lundy, the island’s current Director of Education, who worked at the care home before its closure in 1986.

Lenny Harper, Jersey’s deputy chief of police, said: “We have made a couple of finds of some significance which tend to provide corroboration for some of the allegations we have received. They are items which witnesses have said were in there when offences were committed against them.”

Detectives believe that there may be further significant items in an adjoining room whose entrance has been bricked up in a suspicious manner.

They are also “urgently seeking” another pair of shackles found by builders when the home was converted into a youth hostel four years ago.

A child’s skull was found buried in the concrete floor above the cellar on Saturday and detectives are also reviewing the discovery of bones on the site in 2003 that were dismissed at the time as belonging to an animal.

Excavations began in a field next to the home yesterday in several areas where a sniffer dog indicated that there may be human remains.

Two pits in the courtyard of the building and an area close to the road will also be examined.

Police said that they do not have a list of missing children and are trying to piece together identities from the reports of former residents.

Mr Harper said: “What we do have are anecdotal statements along the lines of, ‘We were in there with such and such a person’ and maybe a first name and they got into a row and there were screams one night and they didn’t appear the next day and someone said they had run away to the UK.”

Some victims have described a “deep, dark” place where youngsters were locked up, drugged and sexually abused beneath a trapdoor. This appears to refer to two underground storage tanks, which can each store 40,000 litres (8,800 gallons), in the courtyard.

Officers have also been told about a third cellar that they have not yet located. A former member of staff said the cellar was not part of the main building and was used as a storeroom.

Two former housemaids said they recalled being told about a “deep, dark cellar” and remembered children referring to a “punishment room”, when they worked at the home in the 1960s.

Jackie Penfold, 63, from Chichester, said: “I have the feeling that the cellar was under a room at the back of the property. It wasn’t a full-size door that you had to go through – it was a half-size door almost like a cupboard. You had to go down a few steps. It was almost like a big dark storeroom.”

Her friend, Sandra O’Riordan, also 63, said: “I definitely heard girls talk about the punishment room but I didn’t take too much notice back then as I was only a teenager.

“Now I wish I had. I never saw anyone being mistreated. I am shattered to think it was going on and [I] didn’t even notice.”

Police have a list of 40 suspects, including former members of staff and outsiders. Detectives said that they would wait until they had gathered all the evidence they needed before making further arrests.

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