Why the Jersey Child-Abuse Story Disappeared

It started with the discovery of a skull fragment on the site of a former children's home, a find that even so-called "quality" news media, jumping the gun, inexplicably identified as "a child's body" while also reporting that the remains of more children were likely to be found on the same premises. Soon the police and the media — codependents in a lamentably dysfunctional relationship — were convincing everyone that the place had a sensational history of child abuse, pedophilia, and murder.

Then, almost two months later, it turned out that the piece of bone could not be reliably dated, and might in fact be hundreds, if not thousands of years old. It might not even have come from a child.

The case fizzled, though the police investigators kept spinning tales to make themselves seem less Keystone Kops-like.

And the media? They yawned and moved on. Chances are you've heard about the Jersey (U.K.) Haut de la Garenne home and the dark secrets that the place was said to harbor. What you probably haven't heard is the embarrassing denouement. It seems to all have been the product of a culture so mesmerized by any lurid allegations involving child abuse that the slightest murmur, and the flimsiest evidence, can trigger a worldwide media frenzy.

It's all eerily reminiscent of the spate of bogus ritual-abuse cases that gripped the United States in the eighties and early nineties, leading to dozens of convictions of people who were clearly innocent (and who were, in some cases, belatedly exonerated and freed).

The one positive thing about the Haut de la Garenne case is that the witch hunt petered out before it had truly begun, and that no ostensible offenders' lives were destroyed (although suspicions are likely to linger for decades).

Investigative journalist Richard Webster performs the, er, post-mortem. It's as incredible a cautionary tale about the media as you're likely to find.