Sir Philip apologises for his child abuse comments

Tuesday 04 July 2017

Jersey’s former Bailiff has made an unreserved apology after being criticised in the Care Inquiry Report for a speech he made nine years ago.

During his Liberation Day speech in 2008 Sir Philip Bailhache told the gathered audience “All child abuse, wherever it happens, is scandalous, but it is the unjustified and remorseless denigration of Jersey and her people that is the real scandal.”

The panel was highly critical of his actions. And in its report released yesterday said: “We have considered whether Sir Philip’s words indicated a belief on his part that the reputation of Jersey was of more importance than the child abuse investigation. We cannot accept that a politician and lawyer of his experience would inadvertently have made what he told the Inquiry was an “unfortunate juxtaposition” of words. We are sure that the way in which Jersey is perceived internationally matters greatly to him. His linking of Jersey’s reputation to the child abuse investigation was, we are satisfied, a grave political error, rather than a considered attempt to influence the course of the police investigation.”

This afternoon Sir Philip told members: "in the report of the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry, I have been criticised for a sentence in my Liberation Day speech on 9^th May 2008, where I stated “All child abuse, wherever it happens, is scandalous, but it is the unjustified and remorseless denigration of Jersey and her people that is the real scandal.”

The context of the speech was important and will be remembered by all who were in the Island in early 2008. But it was never my intention to compare the evil of child abuse with the scandalous misreporting of the Operation Rectangle investigation.

I accept that, looking at the words in cold print in retrospect, the juxtaposition was unfortunate. I think, however, that very few people listening to that speech as a whole in Liberation Square would have imagined that I was asserting that child abuse was less important than the Island’s reputation. I certainly did not intend to give that impression.

I have spent most of my professional life trying to do justice and bringing criminals, including child abusers, to book for their crimes.  Anyone who knows me would know that I regard the abuse of children as one of the gravest of crimes. It is not a matter for comparison with the reputation of the Island.

I accept the panel’s criticism that those words were ill chosen and I am sorry if they caused distress to anyone who heard them."