Senior Minister defends failure to remove child abuser from honorary police

Wednesday 27 January 2016

Sir Philip Bailhache has robustly defended his decision not to remove Roger Holland from the honorary police, despite discovering a past conviction for indecent assault.

Holland was jailed for two years in 2008 for assaulting eight girls, three of them while he was serving as an honorary policeman.

Just after Holland has been sworn in as a Constable’s Officer in 1992, Sir Philip was made aware of a previous conviction of indecent assault against a young girl in 1986, but did not raise an objection.

Speaking at the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry, the current External Relations Minister and former Attorney General said it was his belief at the time, that the 1986 crime had been properly dealt with by the Magistrate and Probation Service.

"In 1992 there was no suggestion of any re-offending or a continuing predilection for young children and it was reasonable to conclude he'd been successfully rehabilitated," he said. "There has been a change in understanding of child sexual abuse. The action of suspending Roger Holland immediately after he had been sworn in would have been a very extraordinary thing to do."

He also calmly rebutted claims made previously at the Inquiry, by former Education Director John Rodhouse, that he had rejected a request when Attorney General to inform the police of an allegation of abuse by a volunteer youth worker.

Sir Philip said he could not recall the request at all and suggested that Mr Rodhouse may have been confused, and in fact spoken to another AG.

In the day-long session, Sir Philip blamed "incompetence" on the part of the authorities for children not receiving better protection.

He was specifically referring to a law that meant evidence of abuse had to be corroborated for a prosecution to be successful. Sir Philip recommended a change in 1993 but the legal requirement for corroborative evidence didn’t end until 2012.

Asked if the delay was because of a lack of political will, he told the Inquiry: “No. The delay can be explained by incompetence, probably.”