JERSEY is the news - why?
JERSEY LAW
JERSEY POLITICS
JERSEY TAX AVOIDANCE.... find out why... what is going on...
SEE NO EVIL
HEAR NO EVIL
SPEAK NO EVIL...
THE BAILIFF
So, the great intellectual Governor of Haut de la Garenne - TOP TOFF of Jersey -
son of a "brother" and grandson of a "brother". [His brother is a "brother" and HM Attorney General.]
ex charterhouse - alumnus of the English public school system of privilege.
ex Oxford alumnus of the pre-eminent college of the university system of privilege.
ex Middle Temple alumnus of the law system of privilege.
He has finally spoken out, rallying "the troops", decrying the reprehensible worldwide MEDIA for daring to do their job of investigative reporting - something the Jersey media does NOT, cannot and will not want to understand.
One would have thought that a civic leader in a civilised place would say exactly the reverse of what Philip Bailhache said in the Jersey Evening Post (JEP), Saturday interview:
"We need not hang our heads in shame."
"We ought not to have any feelings of collective guilt."
I and most upstanding people with a good conscience in Jersey disagree wholeheartedly.
Whilst it is not immediately comparable, the WEST has had to apologise for years of slavery. The Australian government has had to apologise for how the Aborigines were treated. And Chancellor Merkel herself is now in Israel as I write apologising for the Holocaust. There is nothing wrong with feeling shameful.
I DO (feel extremely shameful).
There is nothing wrong with sharing collective grief, sorrow, outrage and, yes, guilt.
But NO, the Bailiff has NO ounce of pity, NO sense of guilt, NO understanding of the magnitude of these sins, these evil wicked horrors, that are being investigated, and every day that more evidence comes forward by more victims, the more are the unspeakable horrors of unadulterated pure evil.
The deaths, possible murders, the known suicides, the psychological, physical and ritual sexual child abuse. The wrecked human beings who now extremely bravely speak up as survivors - neary 200 (two hundred) to date!!!
It is sick... sick... sick...
And search through the article for an apology and you will not find ONE apology, nor from the Dean of Jersey in an earlier interview, a week earlier.
As the important civil leaders in Jersey society, they have both hit the wrong tone, just like the Chief Minister - Frank Walker, and not unsurprisingly.
No mention either of the 60 (sixty) years of silence, concealment, secrecy, denial and cover up. Cover up over 20 (twenty) public administrations and several Bailiffs. And, as others have already said on this site - a site that the Jersey Evening Post (JEP) will only refer to habitually as 'a website' so scared are they of an alternative MEDIA - the BAILIFF appointed Mr Roger Holland to the position of an unaccountable centenier, a case fully covered in the Telegraph, The Times and The News of the World, amongst others. No wonder he despises international journalists so much as they ply their trade with honesty.
The great intellect that is Philip Bailhache says that child abuse is a 'betrayal of innocence' - how long did it take him to think of that underwhelming phrase?
He was - after all - the Governor of the public sector children's home - Haut de la Garenne - throughout the shameful period of its worst abuse!
Every one of its far too many complainants were treated with derision and patronising arrogance and told to "go away"!
Surely it is worse... far worse than that. Do we really have confidence that this intellectually feeble person can ensure the impartiality of the judicial process so compromised is he in so many ways?
And when libertarians raise the dual power of his position - as head of the JUDICIARY and head of the PARLIAMENT in Jersey - something even Clothier stated was unacceptable back in 2000 - the Jersey Establishment's House tabloid, the Jersey Evening Post (that was owned by the Chief Minister) ridiculously argued that 'this is not the time for the debate'. After all, the world's media are watching and we shouldn't wash our dirty linen in public.
So, to quote the JEP, 'constitutional pedants' are attacking 'the integrity of Island democracy' and there are 'no demonstrable adverse consequences' when the Bailiff is both JUDICIAL and POLITICAL head. He is unelected and weilds overweening unaccountable power in the States of Jersey parliamentary chamber by undemocratically and arbitrarily stopping elected Members from speaking and fulfilling their legal and constitutional role, for example, the democratically elected Senator Stuart Syvret who was instructed unconstitutionally to shut up from exercising his democatic mandate in the midst of his Christmas speech - the most popular politician in the island. And the Bailiff is apparently an "independent" judge.
It would all be very funny if it wasn't so horrendously serious with the grave implications this has on the victims of horrific ritual child sexual abuse and the devastating impact this trauma has had on the lives of far too many islanders of Jersey.
Let's turn to the other TWO STOOGES:
The Very Reverend DEAN of Jersey - Mr Robert Key
Quoted in The Guardian 1.3.08 as including in his prayer service litany the following : 'From over-inquisitiveness, false sensationalism and prurient curiosity, Good Lord, deliver us. So the Dean tries to put the lid on everything - we must remain discrete and private. No nasty journalists being over-inquisitive, or, perhaps, even just enquiring and investigative? He shares the Bailiff's view of Jersey and of the outside media - Like the Bailiff, though he sits and speaks in the States, he is 'not a POLITICAL figure...my role in the States does NOT seem to be an issue.'
I'm afraid it IS an issue - and in most modern democracies it would be, Bob!
Especially in an age of secularisation and dis-establishment and growing atheism. But, I digress. In the Dean's Saturday Interview (JEP 8.3.08) he says he has found nothing sinister among the members of the Establishment he has encountered, and gives them "all a clean bill of health". Once again, no responsibility, no cover up, no apology to the victims, abused under state or States' care. Interestingly, Bob the Dean says 'Jersey is a beautiful, delightful, low crime, high achieving place.' Read Frank Walker's 'Press Release' where he scurrilously attacks the Rally and you'll find the same sentiments exactly. Come on, Frank, tell us, who wrote it first? Are you a PLAGIARIST as well as an UTTER INCOMPETENT? Or is this some sort of ESTABLISHMENT OATH you all mumble in the Great Hall when initiated?
The THIRD and funniest of the THREE STOOGES
Variously described in the local paper and elsewhere as a 'petty, pathetic individual who is an embarrassment to both Jersey and its people', as 'basking in his self-importance and clearly used to the politics of the stitch-up' as a 'discredited lame duck' and 'jaw dropping and hit a new low even for him' and of 'showing utter contempt for both the children who attended this home of horrors and the victims', he is facing calls from everywhere to RESIGN NOW. He is a dead parrot, deceased, past his sell by date, gone to meet his maker, kaput, destroyed, thoroughly DISCREDITED. This is definitely a DEAD PARROT. From Paxman to BBC Breakfast to BBC Radio 4 to Jeremy Vine to St. Martin's Hall to the nasty post-Rally Press Release, he has been an unmitigated disaster.
THEIR BIG PROBLEM
These THREE gentlemen have a massive problem. As events unfold, it will become more and more clear that there has been a COVER-UP and TOP-LEVEL COMPLICITY in this scandal. Already one famous, perhaps now infamous, SENATOR has been named by the press. Ex-police attached to senior current politicians are apparently intimidating Harper and he has used very stark words about what he sees as CORRUPTION and OBSTRUCTION. Chief Constable Power has told the press that 'some of the suspects are INFLUENTIAL FIGURES WITHIN JERSEY SOCIETY' and has said THERE ARE ESTABLISHMENT LINKS. Not just care workers, but FORMER and EXISTING POLICE, CIVIL SERVANTS and POLITICIANS are implicated in this scandal. It is crucial therefore that even dead suspects are named so that the people of Jersey can know just how high this link goes, right to the top of Jersey's complacent and complicit Establishment.
Meanwhile, the THREE STOOGES can be seen weekly in the Jersey media, performing their TIRED OLD PANTOMIME ACT, not very intelligent or convincing, but often able to amuse.
T. Brothers...