Couple jailed for care home child abuse

A married couple were jailed today for a string of physical assaults against vulnerable children at the Haut de la Garenne care home in Jersey in the 1970s and 1980s.

Morag and Anthony Jordan, both 62, from Kirriemuir, Angus, were found guilty in November last year of eight separate charges.

During the two-week trial at the Royal Court of Jersey the Jordans were accused of inflicting "casual and routine violence" while working as houseparents at the children's home.

Prosecutors said they acted like "intimidating bullies" and had carried out "frequent and callous" assaults on vulnerable residents.

They were arrested after a multimillion-pound police investigation into suspected abuse at Haut de la Garenne.

Today at the Royal Court of Jersey Mrs Jordan was jailed for nine months and her husband was jailed for six months, the court said.

They were sentenced by the trial judge Commissioner Sir Christopher Pitchers.

Some of the couple's victims sat in the public gallery of the court to hear the sentences. Some wept as the verdicts were announced.

Morag Jordan, originally from Dundee, was employed as a housemother between 1970 and 1984. She was convicted of charges relating to assaults on four children.

One had her face pushed into urine-soaked sheets after she wet the bed.