The Channel island of Jersey is usually known as a tax haven and destination for tourists. Yet, beneath the island's picturesque image, locals say there lies an entrenched culture of covering up scandals.

"It is quite a corrupt place, it's not run on what you know but who you know, it always has been and it's getting worse as the finance industry has come in, it seems to be the people at the lower end of the scale who are being affected more," one of the residents told FRANCE 24.

A short drive away from the coast in an isolated rural location, FRANCE 24’s journalists reached Haute de la Garenne,  the grim and imposing former children's home at the heart of one of Britain's largest child abuse scandals.

Dubbed the House of Horrors by the media, Haute de la Garenne has become Jersey's most infamous landmark.

Police launched a secret investigation into the foster home in 2006 after reports of systematic abuse here spanning three decades until its closure in 1986. The investigation went public February 2008 after fragments of a child's skull were found in a stairwell at the back of the building, but officials are still waiting for test results on the fragments - and believe the remains might not be linked to the abuse inquiry.

Forensic teams carrying out a meticulous search here have uncovered a network of four secret underground chambers. They discovered shackles and a shallow bath with traces of blood in the first chamber and are currently searching a second.

These grim findings tie in with what victims have told police about punishment rooms located in the home's basement.

Leading the investigation is Jersey's Deputy Police Chief, Lenny Harper. COming from the Irish province of Ulster, his objectivity, hands-on approach and openness with the media have inspired confidence in the investigation. "It's been very important from our point of view in getting victims to come forward. It's been very helpful. We couldn't really have done the inquiry without the media," says Harper.

While the current inquiry is focusing on the period between the 1960s and 80s, former residents say the catalogue of abuse at this institution spans back more than half a century.

Fighting for justice

76 year-old Giffard Aubin lived at Haute de la Garenne - then known as the Jersey Boys Home - for nine years between 1942 and 1951.  He was terrorized by older bully boys who subjected him to degrading punishments and violent attacks.

"Two of the bully boys got hold of my wrist and pushed it through a pane of glass”, says Aubin. “That was just for kicks. That was never attended to by a doctor nor any stitches put in."

The investigation potentially spans across every level of Jersey society from the staff and children at the home to the politicians overseeing child protection and officials in charge of the home at the time.

"It's only my opinion, but I can't see how it's possible, considering the way Jersey was run, that it didn't filter up and was just kept quiet. They might have heard this, but they just didn't do anything about it. They just didn't do anything about it," says  Mile Collins, a political activist.

On Saturday 8 March, hundreds of people gathered in the main town of St Helier and observed a minute's silence to remember the victims. 

"My brother was put in there because my mother couldn't cope with him,” says Collette Cahill, sister of a victim. They were put in that place thinking they would be safe and some of them didn't come out alive.  But it turned out he wasn't safe. None of the kids in there were safe. Some of them didn't come out alive. One boy hanged himself; Michael O Conner was my brother's best friend. He hanged himself, he was only about 11 or 12 at the time."  

The demonstration was organized by concerned islanders to pay tribute to the abuse victims and demand justice.

Former Health Minister Stuart Syvret was the only politician allowed to address the crowd.

He was fired last year after repeatedly exposing government inadequacies regarding child welfare. 

"The things I have heard; the things I have learnt over the past twelve months have been shocking”, the former minister said. “I can see some of their faces in this audience and the things that they endured and that our society failed to protect them from still brings tears of rage to my eyes."

His efforts to seek the truth have given some victims the courage to speak up after decades of silence.

“I’m approached by a lot of people, not only victims, but also ordinary members of the pubic,” says Syvret. “I think among the ordinary working population of Jersey, most people are disgusted by what has happened, they wish to have it prevented from ever happening again so I think the ordinary working people give me a lot of support. It's not the case with everybody; the establishment, the middle classes, they don't like this kind of publicity for the island, but as I say to them, bad publicity is better than tolerating and hiding abuse."

In 2000 Senator Syvret exposed a damming report on child abuse allegations at a second Jersey institution- a report which the States wanted to keep under wraps.

More revelations surfaced last year, prompting the politician to accuse the government of a catastrophic failure to protect children in its care.

He's calling for a major overhaul of Jersey's constitution and wants independent judges to be brought to the island to deal with any prosecutions arising from the abuse scandal.

While concerns of a top level cover-up persist, the States do appear to be working hard to try to right the wrongs of their predecessors. Meanwhile, Jersey remains a society struggling to come to terms with the magnitude of abuse which went unchecked in the island for so long.