"HOW JERSEY WORKS": REVISITED

Speaking Truth to Power

Having to spend so much time battling the Jersey oligarchy's army of million pound lawyers has left me precious little time to write new articles. Instead - a detailed legal case has been gradually coming together beneath the battered keys of the lap-top. At present it's 110 pages (not including evidential documents, affidavits and cited cases) - but I'm reasonably confident it's going to make quite an exciting read for all that.

A small part of the research has involved the occasional trawl through the back-pages of this blog, and if I say so myself, many of the articles remain fresh and relevant.

I had cause to re-read the old article I reproduce below - and I found it so accurate it amuses me to re-produce it. Called "How Jersey Works" - it was written in response to a letter published in The Rag - and it remains a very useful guide to the true nature of power in Jersey - the last single-party state in Europe.

And the issues I address in the article - and the "culture" I describe - are not unrelated to the police-state oppression I'm attempting to resist.

So, although written some time ago, in response to a specific example of Jersey oligarchy log-rolling, it remains a depressingly accurate description and dissection of "The Jersey Way".

In the mean-time - put Monday 14th March in your diaries; that's when the court case starts.

Stuart.

Saturday, 29 March 2008
HOW JERSEY WORKS:
Decades of the Most Foul Child Abuse;

Nearly all of it hidden;

How did it Happen?

“The Jersey Way”:

“Measured”, “Respectable” and “civilised”.

I hope many of my readers will have been able to see the Inside Out programme which was broadcast by regional BBC television last night. It will be on their web site for a week or so I guess.

Could I also recommend that you try to see BBC Panorama, which will be broadcast this coming Monday. It focuses entirely upon the Jersey child abuse disaster.

If you have been following this crisis in the national or international media – you will be deeply puzzled as to how such monstrous abuse could have been concealed for so long? Why did every ‘check and balance’ in Jersey fail to protect these children?

Why did those in “authority” in Jersey permit this to happen?

To discover the answer to that question, check out a letter published in today’s Jersey Evening Post, Saturday 29th March.

I would post the web address – but The Rag, being so archaic, the letter isn’t on their web site yet.

The letter in question is written by one Philip ‘Pip’ Le Brocq. I do suggest you acquire a copy as it serves as yet further evidence of how intrinsically decadent, stupid and hypocritical the Jersey oligarchy is.

The letter is titled “Senator’s words discredit the island he claims to love.”

It is another assault upon me for speaking the truth – a commodity in profoundly short supply amongst the Jersey establishment – indeed, something they appear to have a nasty allergy to.

I suppose I should be grateful for Pip’s letter – it illustrates so perfectly the very points I make in trying to expose the debased and ignorant self-interest that grips Jersey’s elites like a cancer.

And there is, I should add, an additional advantage in that whilst he’s writing this cretinous and ethically bankrupt nonsense, he doesn’t have time to write the truly appalling ‘sonnets’ he is want to churn out – labouring under the delusion he is some kind of ‘poet’.

As many of the greats have said – the first requirement to write good poetry is a grasp of the truth – not something we see on display in Pip’s letter.

Just how dishonest and stupid is his missive?

Well, let’s have a quick stroll through its nether regions in our quest to understand the monstrous failings and abuses of power in Jersey.

The letter is an attempt to defend the Bailiff, Sir Philip Bailhache – chief judge - and Speaker of the island’s parliament.

Phil gave a political interview to The Rag a while back – which I wrote about in my post “A Last Desperate Throw of the Dice.”

Pip portrays Phil as some kind of towering beacon of wisdom and leadership – a mighty figure we ignorant and frightened proles can cling to in this time of storms.

Well – let us recap the actual - evidenced – “performance” of Phil Bailhache.

This is a man who was Chair of the Victoria College Board of Governors for much of the 1990s – when complaints of child abuse were being made. Complaints which were not reported to the police.

The same Sir Phil Bailhache, who – when I was facing a dismissal debate in the Jersey parliament for having honestly answered a question about child protection failures – prevented my official comments and supporting evidence from being published.

The self-same supposed judicial expert – who was content to allow the political ‘trial’ of me take place – with only the case for the ‘prosecution’ being published.

The same Phil Bailhache who failed to declare a ‘conflict of interest’ given that some of the evidence he was oppressing related directly to the child abuse at Victoria College – when he was Chairman of the Board of Governors.

The self-same Phil who condemns the international media coverage as “scurrilous” – it apparently not occurring to him that the UK media have reported – entirely accurately – such things as his anti-democratic and foul actions in preventing me giving a speech which was the first ever expression of recognition and empathy for the abuse survivors by a member of the States.

The same man who – by frightened and rabid dictat – recently had me thrown out of a members’ room in the island’s parliament building whilst I was in the middle of an interview with a French TV crew.

As I said in my other post – essentially an inadequate, ignorant and foolish little man.

A person utterly out of his depth and possessed of the “wisdom” of a Moss Side alcoholic.

But – I titled this post “How Jersey Works”.

I wanted to explain to you the breathtaking incompetence, decadence, self-interest, greed, megalomania, mutual protection and startling invulnerability of the Jersey oligarchy.

By understanding “How Jersey Works”, we gain some insight into how this island can have had within its midst’s – and under the very noses of its authorities – generations of the most foul concealed child abuse. Because, let’s face it, concealing generations of systemic and appalling child abuse is so clearly the “civilised”, “dignified”, “measured” and “statesman” like thing to do.

So – How Jersey Works:

You see – what Philip Le Brocq neglects to mention in his epistle is that he once was a teacher at Victoria College.

He somehow also forgot to mention that he is a personal friend of Phil Bailhache.

And - very forgetfully - he fails to inform readers that he is the husband of one Sally Le Brocq – formerly Sally Harrison – multi-millionaire scion of the family which owned the Guiton Group – parent company of Jersey’s only “newspaper” the Jersey Evening Post.

Remember the Guiton Group? Its boss and chair of the board was one Frank Harrison Walker – now Jersey’s Chief Minister. A man who attaches greater importance to defending senior civil servants than he does to child protection.

Pip also neglects to mention another fascinating example of How Jersey Works. He fails to tell us that his multi-millionaire wife, Sally Le Brocq, is one of the 12 ‘Jurats’ – lay-judges - of Jersey’s Royal Court.

Now – regular readers of this blog will remember – even if Pip doesn’t – the name of another of the 12 ‘Jurats’.

That being one ‘Jurat John Le Breton’ – the man who had to resign in disgrace as Vice-Principle of Victoria College for having failed to inform the Police Force of complaints of child abuse – and who even went so far as to attempt, with the Principle, Jack Hydes, to intimidate and humiliate two of the victims in to withdrawing their complaints.

So – there we have a quick lesson in How Jersey Works.

How its entrenched, nepotistic and incestuous power-claque ruthlessly work together at the merest hint of a threat to their lucrative grip on power in the island.

Pip moves towards a close by bemoaning the fact that I am returning to my “immature” days of an enfant terrible - rather than being “admirable” in “gaining the wisdom and dignity of an elder statesman.”

These fascinating assertions require a few questions.

And I really need answers to these questions, Pip, as - obviously - I am clearly so out of step with the “reasonable and polite” conduct of Jersey’s traditional establishment.

Admittedly, about 95% of the rest of the planet seem to share my views – but, of course, it is simply axiomatic that the Jersey Establishment is Never Wrong.

So most of the world, most of my readers, and I have clearly become profoundly confused; we’ve lost our way, Pip. And we need your guidance to regain touch with the truth.

So, tell me, Pip, I take it that your definition of “dignified” includes the terribly, terribly “respectable” “elder statesmen” who raped orphans in Haute de la Garrene?

Would that be the kind of “wisdom” and “dignity” displayed by “elder statesmen” who have repeatedly attached greater importance to the “image” of their oligarchy and the size of their bank accounts than they have to the battery and torture of vulnerable children?

Pip, would the “civilised and measured” behaviour of which you speak include the peddling of lies and oppressions against those trying to protect vulnerable children?

Do you, Pip, include in your definition of “civilised and respectable” behaviour, the unlawful preventing of the publication of evidence which demonstrated the truth of the Jersey child abuse disaster?

Pip, do you consider it “statesman” like to assault democracy and justice in this way, as your friend Phil did – whilst failing to declare a ‘conflict of interests’ – namely him being Chairman of the Board of Governors of Victoria College when that institution was concealing child abuse?

Do you mean the “civilised and measured” behaviour exhibited by Phil when unlawfully stopping me from making a speech in the island’s parliament in which I was attempting to express some empathy and compassion for the Jersey abuse victims?

Well, actually Pip, you needn’t bother replying – your answers to these questions must surely be “yes”. Why else would you have written such cretinous and despicable rubbish?

And, even though your answer is “yes” – well, I’m sorry – but I’m just going to have to carry on being - and choose your appellation according to your tastes – “reprobate scum”, “a communist”, a “McCarthyite”, an “anarchist” or – famously - someone who is “trying to shaft Jersey internationally.”

I’ve been called all these things – and worse – in the course of the last 12 months.

My “offence”? Trying to root out and stop the abuses of power that enabled child rape and battery to remain concealed for generations.

So – in fact, being opposed so totally and rabidly by people like you, Pip, your mate Phil and the rest of your Jersey oligarchy friends, actually makes me feel pretty good.

For if I was regarded by people like you and the rest of the Jersey crypto-fascist feudalists as “one of us” and a “respectable elder statesman” – I would develop a compulsive disorder which would require me to go and shower every 30 minutes in an effort to cleanse myself of the sensations of filth and rot.

Pip concludes his missive by likening me to the protagonist of ‘A Picture of Dorian Gray’ – destroying myself through self-delusion.

Let me invite readers of this blog to decide for themselves.

Given what we know about the child abuse disaster in Jersey, who, do you imagine, has been unceasing in their efforts over the years to maintain and project a healthy and desirable “image” to the world – whilst the decay, rot, festering canker and corruption boiled out of the picture hidden away in the attic?

Me – or Philip Le Brocq’s beloved Jersey establishment?

The answer is self-evident – so - as I said in a previous comment – give me honesty over “politeness” every single time.

Stuart Syvret.