To everyone who's reaching out as a result of my appearance on @gregolear's Prevail podcast, please know your kindness and support mean the world to me. I came to Jersey island having really no idea what I would find there -- I first just went there to see friends.
But over time, I came to love the island and could not bear to see what was happening to hundreds of children there. I could not understand it. How can anyone close their eyes to the pain of children? And often, when I cannot understand something, I write about it.
In the spring of 2010, after passing in my first book, I took what little money I had left from my book advance, put all my belongings into storage, and spent the summer in Jersey and the UK researching what was going on, and why. I thought I'd be done by August -- I was wrong!
It been more than a decade of flying to Jersey from wherever I am -- London, Denver, Boston, New York, Toronto -- to do interviews and research. And more than a decade of being detained, threatened and surveilled, as @bald_from discovered while a member of Jersey's parliament.
And many people were not willing to speak at first. Remember, @StuartSyvret, how I emailed you for weeks -- months? He did not trust journalists anymore. To speak with Lenny Harper, the senior investigating officer, I had to take a train and show up at his front door in Scotland.
He was quite startled to see me, but invited me in and that was the beginning. I learned that only through building trusting human relationships could each person speak and know their story would be valued and heard.
We are now finally learning what the Queen's role on the island of Jersey is, as well as her Crown officers, and how they will put Jersey's tax shelter status above the welfare of its children. If you are a pedophile in Jersey and you are rich or powerful enough, you will walk.
Right now, we know the States of Jersey Police removed children's remains from the Jersey children's home Haut de la Garenne. These were multiple juvenile remains. But today we do not know where these remains are. It would be good if we could confirm this with @JerseyPolice.
One of the remains, JAR/6, was initially identified after being unearthed as a juvenile fragment of child's skull. To this day, Jersey's authorities insist it transformed into coconut shell -- but no one can explain how or why. It was one thing, then another. Where is JAR/6 now?
Things appear and disappear a lot in Jersey -- and the UK. Police records. Evidence. Emails and letters. Reports of crimes and abuse. Court documents and financial documents. People, like @StuartSyvret, are imprisoned, or legally gagged, and are not allowed to say they are.
I have looked at Jersey for over a decade and have yet to detect any hard legal, financial, regulatory, legislative, or criminal boundary lines. The law is applied selectively and seems to be entirely malleable. On a $2 trillion tax shelter, the truth goes to the highest bidder.
I came to Jersey with a simple question: How does the Queen of England and the Crown officers of such a beautiful island, with such wonderful people, somehow close their eyes to the abuse of hundreds of children and instead work so hard to attack those who seek to stop it?
As a journalist, I had to know. But I do not like the answers I am finding. It is deeply troubling to see the Queen knighting pedophile apologists and enablers. I do not like that so many people make excuses and look the other way. Crimes against children don't just happen.
Crimes against children happen in an ecosystem where they are allowed to thrive, by default or design. So I have my answer. And I am the sorrier for it. As Jersey's @TheVoiceJersey & @RicoSorda have said, they cannot unsee what they've seen. But they wish they could. And so do I.
On a personal note, I have never gone through what so many of these children went through. But my little sister was sent away to a children's home and it turned out to be a bad place. She was never the same. To this day, I still mourn what could have been: nytimes.com/2018/09/02/nyr…
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