'Human bone' at centre of Jersey children's home inquiry is actually a piece of wood or coconut shell
By DAVID ROSE
Last updated at 23:26 18 May 2008
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The "remains of a child" discovered by police investigating allegations of abuse at a former children's home on Jersey is really a small piece of wood or broken coconut shell, The Mail on Sunday has learned.
The discovery of the fragment in February prompted police to open an inquiry into a possible murder at the Haut de la Garenne home; and this week detectives are set to announce further evidence which they believe shows that another two dead children were buried in the cellar.
But Jersey police were told almost six weeks ago that tests by Britain's top carbon-dating laboratory showed that the original evidence – supposedly a fragment of a child's skull – was not bone.
The island's controversial deputy police chief, Lenny Harper, who is heading the investigation, has consistently failed to mention the vital results in public statements since the tests were completed.
Interviewed in the home last Tuesday, he repeated: "It is a fragment of a human body...we don't know how, when or where that person died."
Last night Mr Harper admitted that his team had received emails reporting the test results on April 8, including a message that stated: "This one ain't bone."
But he insisted that had "never seen" a letter setting out the findings in more detail, which was addressed to him personally and dated May 1, until it was emailed to him yesterday.
Mr Harper also conceded that "clothing and other items" which he previously said had been found at the home – fuelling speculation that a child's grave had been unearthed – amounted to a piece of a button and a leather toggle.
However, he said he remained confident that the fragment was bone, based on the opinion of his forensic anthropologist, Julie Roberts, even though she had not been able to carry out detailed tests.
"As far as I am concerned, it was diagnosed as bone, and bone it remains," he said.
Scientists from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit spent weeks investigating the fragment with the world's most sophisticated equipment, whereas Ms Roberts had to reach her conclusion in a hurry – between the fragment's discovery at 9.30am on February 24 and Mr Harper's Press conference that afternoon.
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When he first revealed that his team had found part of a child's body, Mr Harper had already spent many months investigating allegations of physical and sexual abuse at Haut de la Garenne and elsewhere on the island.
But until this discovery, the case had attracted little interest.
When the Oxford scientists told Jersey's forensic services manager, Vicky Coupland, that the fragment was not bone, she urged them not to mention their conclusion in public, saying the police hoped to avoid a media row, which risked "detracting from the investigation as a whole".
The scientists, led by the lab's deputy director, Dr Tom Higham, were so concerned by Mr Harper's continued insistence that the fragment was human bone that they wrote to him formally on May 1.
They restated their findings and added that they had been endorsed by a second opinion from a leading bone
expert, palaeontologist Dr Roger Jacobi.
"We concluded that the sample was not in fact bone but almost certainly a piece of wood," the letter said.
"Its curvature may have had something to do with it being misidentified. It appears to be more likely a seed casing or a small piece of coconut. Our conclusion is that this sample is a) not bone and b) not human."
Dr Jacobi said last night: "I share Tom's conclusions. I believe it is a piece of coconut shell, such as you might come across on a beach.
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