Nonce-catcher O'Connor calls for paedos to face tougher sentences

The JEP has reported that the veteran paedo-catcher Cheyenne O'Connor has called for convicted paedophiles to face tougher sentences and warned that Jersey's loose anti-nonce laws could encourage paedophiles to come to Jersey to abuse children. Well, imagine my shock.

O'Connor, a vigilante who poses as teenage boys and girls in order to catch child sex criminals, said that although courts have the power to impose the same sentences as in the UK, they too-often let abusers off with a slap on the wrist, and said that she would support a two-year jail term for the first offence and a five-year term for repeat offenders.

However ironic the JEPaedo's newfound support for campaigners against child abuse, O'Connor is sadly entirely right. Jersey is, and always has been, a safe haven for those who want to abuse children. All you need to do is just look at O'Connor's Facebook page, Unknown Jersey, which documents Cheyenne's efforts to expose nonces and the trials and sentencing of the abusers in question. Robert Lupton le Masurier - attempted to meet a child for sexual grooming, got seven months. Luis Daniel da Silva Ferreria - attempted to meet a 13-year-old girl for sex after six months of grooming, got ten months. Jason Sutton - tried to meet an underage boy for sex in a car park, got ten months. The law states that these guys could've gotten up to 10 years - the courts are setting a consistent pattern of major undersentencing of serious criminals.

I guess my reaction to this sort of thing amounts to "it's a shame, but it's not a shock". Anyone who followed closely the "Independent" Jersey Care Inquiry or the Trevor and Shona Pitman bankruptcy case will know that until a couple of years ago, the Royal Court counted among its Jurats evidenced participants in the Victoria College child abuse coverup. The police investigation into the "paedophile yatchsmen" case, where huge numbers of children from Haut de la Garenne were loaned to rich boatsmen as sex slaves, took 1,776 statements from 192 alleged victims and identified 151 alleged abusers - of those abusers, precisely seven were successfully prosecuted. You have senior politicians who lied to the Care Inquiry, the coverup of serial murder and rape, the illegal dismissal of a police chief because his child abuse investigation refused to be the stage-managed puppet show the official inquiry ended up being and the Mugabe-esque house raid of a senior opposition politician.

You also have the people who masterminded all this - the coverups, the paedophilia, the corruption, the elaborate piece of theatre that was the Care Inquiry - remaining either in major leadership positions or in cushy retirement.. You've got your William Bailhache, your Tim le Cocq, your Philip Bailhache, your Frank Walker, your Terry le Main. All masterminds behind the coverup of the vilest crimes imaginable, and all the ones that got to walk away - along with virtually everyone else the Care Inquiry could've and should've exposed. This society of ours is infested from top to bottom with those who either engaged in or conspired to cover up some of the most disgusting crimes against hundreds of people that you can possibly imagine.

Is it any wonder that these low-level paedos are getting a slap on the wrist? I mean, at least they're getting some sort of punishment. Of course, if they were rich and part of the establishment, the feudal forces who actually dominate our so-called democracy would probably have worked night and day to ensure they got to walk away.

Just like the rest of them.

A shame?

Yes.

A shock?

Hardly.

Whistleblower alleges massive Children's Services coverup

Some things never change.

In an anonymous letter sent to the JEP, an unnamed social worker has alleged not only a myriad of failings in Jersey's Children's Services, but that an institutional culture of fear has prevented the true level of failure being exposed. Calling Children's Services "a scam, a cover-up and wickedness", the letter alleges that "evil is happening to the social services" and that "people are only thinking of themselves. There is no comradeship and no one is looking after your back. The staff have signed the official secret act and they would be dismissed if they blew the trumpet". 

The points the letter makes should come as no surprise at all to anyone who has ever worked in Jersey's social services. It identifies three main big issues - major staff shortages, the abundance of temporary workers, and useless managers more concerned with covering their own backs than looking out for vulnerable kids. This first problem is well-known - the States have acknowledged in the past that we've got serious shortages of trained social workers, but insisted there's no quick fix. Instead, they've tried to apply a sticking plaster in the form of temporary workers, AKA "temps", paid as much as £1.5K a week to come and plug gaps in Health and Social Services (HSS). These temporary workers aren't stupid - obviously, when they're on a grand and a half a week, they've got no reason to apply for a permanent job in a health and social care system where even the highest-paid workers are making far less. This means that while the taxpayer is basically left out to dry, these temps take a nice cushy job in HSS over the winter, then scurry back to merry old England once the sun comes out. Since they've usually got no meaningful link to the island, they're also quite happy to up sticks and go home should there be any risk of them being held accountable for anything - or, in the whistleblower's words, "when the shit hits the fan they will be on the next flight home with no responsibility or repercussions blamed on them". Managers are another thing altogether - the whistleblower alleges that managers, caught up with internal feuding and jostling for power, have an attitude that boils down to "we must not rock the boat, just keep lying" (in the letter's words). Most concerning of all is the letter's allegation that "the powers that be have such a grip on Children's Services" - is this 2018, post-Independent Care Inquiry, or the bad old days of the 1980s? Or did anything ever actually change?

Frankly, it's amazing that this comes as a shock to anyone. As the Independent Care Inquiry (ICI) found, Children's Services in Jersey have been a disaster zone run by a mixture of incompetent fools and malicious perverts for decades. Reports since then have hardly been more charitable - a review conducted early this year by the Children's Commissioner Deborah McMillan and (cue vomit) SOJ Chief Executive Charlie Parker found that, unsurprisingly, change was proceeding at a snail's pace, temporary workers were causing confusion and despair in vulnerable children (some kids were changing between five or six different social workers in the space of 12 months), and not enough permanent social workers were being attracted to live in the island. A preliminary Ofsted report published a few weeks back found, er, the exact same problems. Everything we've seen since the ICI was published seems to make the same conclusion - there hasn't been a serious change, vulnerable kids are still being failed, and our children's services are still a trainwreck. The States' response to the allegations was the same spiel we always get - "we recognise there are serious failings and that we need to make swift improvements".

The deep state in Jersey has been resisting serious reform of Children's Services for years, and it's time the States stopped beating around the bush. The pace of change has been cripplingly slow, the department's staff are still sworn to an oath of omertà and vulnerable kids are still being seriously failed, and will continue to be until HSS and the States as a whole get their act together.

"The powers that be have such a grip on Children's Services".

Chilling.