Man, 68, charged by police investigating child rapes at Jersey 'house of horrors' care home

Claude Donnelly was charged with assaulting the girl between 1971 and 1974 by detectives working on claims of abuse at a children's home on the Channel Island.

He was also charged with gross indecency and will appear before magistrates in St Helier in the morning.

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Although the charges were made by police investigating alleged abuse at the Haut de la Garenne children's home, but officers said the charges did not relate directly to the home.

They are instead part of the wider inquiry into alleged abuse of children on the island.

The charge sheet states the alleged rape took place in St Helier between March 1971 and March 1972, against the 12-year-old, identified as Witness A.

Donnelly, of St Brelade, Jersey, is alleged to have indecently assaulted the same girl between March 1971 and March 1974 when she was aged between 12 and 15.

The third charge claims the man made the girl carry out an act of gross indecency on him between the same dates.

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Police said Donnelly had reserved his plea to the charges.

It is understood detectives have an arrest warrant for another man who is a former employee at Haut de la Garenne.

They are hoping to make their next arrest in the next week.

Deputy police chief Lenny Harper confirmed that his officers are investigating about 40 suspects.

More than 100 people claim they were abused since the 1960s at Haut de la Garenne, which closed in 1986.

Some of the victims claim they were kept in solitary confinement and attacked in secret underground chambers.

In four underground rooms, police have found a number of items, including shackles and a bath, which they say corroborate claims from victims.

On Friday two anthropologists and two archaeologists are to start a detailed excavation of the third and fourth cellars, where bone fragments and child's teeth were found.

The bones have been delivered to the UK to ascertain their origin, and the teeth will follow this week.

Fragments of a child's skull were found in February buried under a stairwell.

Tests on the skull were unable to identify the child but revealed the bone was placed at that location no earlier than the 1920s.

The first man to be charged in connection with the inquiry was Gordon Wateridge.

The 76-year-old is charged with three offences of indecent assault on girls under 16 between 1969 and 1979 when he was warder at the home.

Wateridge, who is originally from Croydon, Surrey, is on conditional bail and has not entered a plea.