Police searching a former children’s home for human remains said today they had made "a couple of finds of some significance" in a bricked-up cellar room.

Jersey Deputy Police Chief Lenny Harper told reporters: "They are items which witnesses have said were in there when offences were committed against them."

The Haut de la Garenne home is at the centre of a major child abuse investigation involving more than 160 alleged victims and 40 suspects going back to the 1960s.

Mr Harper declined to say what the items were but he did say that no more human remains had been found. A child’s skull was discovered in the building on Saturday.

Apart from painstakingly searching the cellar, police begun to excavate more sites of interest around the building. Two hidden underground rooms have already been discovered at the home, which was at the centre of an abuse scandal, and police are now investigating whether there is a third.

Children who lived at Haut de la Garenne have told detectives of a dark, windowless "punishment room" where victims were caged in solitary confinement.

One, named "Pamela", described a small room about 12ft by 16ft, in which "the most cruel, sadistic and evil acts" were carried out against young victims in the 1970s.

Other victims have told of a "deep dark" place where youngsters were locked up, drugged and sexually abused beneath a trap door. Workmen renovating the building in the past have told of finding shackles, leg irons and wooden stocks.

Police have now gained access to a subterranean room described as a "chamber" or "cellar" that does not appear on site plans. A police sniffer dog gave his handlers a strong reaction, suggesting he had found human remains or blood.

The room is around 12 feet square, bricked up from the front, and filled with rock, clay and soil, blocking access.

Mr Harper said: "The cellar is exactly as some of the witnesses who made statements described. There is some corroboration for the features that they described in there."

A second room, about the same size, is still blocked off. The way it has been bricked up appears suspicious, said police, who intend to move artificial lights into the rooms because of the lack of natural light. They have not ruled out finding further rooms, and revealed today that ex-members of staff have told them they remember a third chamber.

Officers will now continue the painstaking process of pulling out the physical evidence from the first room and gaining access to the second. It could take up to a fortnight to complete.

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