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20 January 2015

​A witness has told the Inquiry that children suffered "child cruelty, neglect, assault and mental torture" at Haut de la Garenne.

She said that staff responsible for the abuse are still employed "in other care environments."

The evidence from Witness 50 came in a statement read out by Patrick Sadd, Counsel to the Inquiry. He told the Panel that "for understandable reasons", Witness 50 had felt unable to give her evidence in person.

She went to live at Haut de la Garenne in 1970 when she was five. Three younger siblings were also sent to live there as their mother was unable to cope. She had been asked by her mother to look after them and still feels responsible for the abuse they suffered.

Witness 50 described how her brother was singled out for beatings and punishments including being hit in the face with a hairbrush, so hard that it broke.

On a camping trip to Guernsey he was stripped naked by staff and hung upside down. His sister says that he was "a private boy" and this had been humiliating.

On another trip to Southampton, he had been made to stand in a toilet hole, six feet deep. Staff later admitted responsibility for this incident.

Witness 50 remembers being sent on a trip to London and assumed that children in care in Islington had been taken to Jersey in exchange. But she was later told there were no records of this.

Jimmy Savile visited Haut de la Garenne and Witness 50 accompanied him on charity walks. She says she doesn't remember "untoward" happening.

She said she "hates" the staff who were responsible for hurting her family but also claims that they were too young and "didn't really know how to look after children."

Witness 50 still sees some of the staff and noted that they are still employed in care environments including Mont-a-l-Abbe, a school for children with special needs.

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