As Evil as They Come.....

The Beast of Jersey......

Jersey is an island and part of the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy, France.   It, and the other islands, is a British Crown Dependency.   It is commonly known as a ‘Tax Haven’.

Apparently it is a beautiful island and a well known holiday resort.

For eleven years, from 1960 to 1971 it was the scene of many vicious attacks including thirteen assaults and rapes.   Victims, both male and female were taken from their bedrooms and assaulted.    The search for the attacker continued over the years without success.

Early in the enquiry, an eccentric farm worker and fisherman, Alphonse Le Gastelois was arrested for the crimes but due to lack of evidence he was released.    It appears that the local inhabitants believed him to be guilty when his home was burnt down in an act of arson.

Alphonse was frightened out of his wits and as a result he left the island and moved.   He remained on his new lightly inhabited island for fourteen years and whilst there, the true attacker was arrested.   Old Alphonse did however live to the ripe old age of 97 and died in June 2012.

Meanwhile, back in Jersey the attacks continued with the suspect evading arrest on each occasion.    As happens in many such investigations the arrest came by a sheer chance of luck (or fate if you prefer).

Edward Paisnel, a local Jersey inhabitant, was stopped driving a car by police having failed to stop at a red traffic signal.   A pursuit followed with Paisnel using his local knowledge to try to evade the following police officers.   Eventually he was stopped where it was found that the car had been stolen earlier that day.    When it was searched police found many items of clothing that had been well described over the years as being worn by the attacker.   Paisnel claimed that he was on his way to ‘an orgy’.   The clothing had a very strong musty smell which many of the victims had previously spoken of.

In December 1971 he was convicted of 13 counts of assault, rape and sodomy and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

At his appeal, his legal team argued that the trial had been greatly sensationalised by the press with the title ‘The Beast of Jersey’ and others being used.  The appeal was unsuccessful.    Upon his subsequent release from his sentence he moved back to Jersey but because of local feelings against him, he moved to the Isle of Wight where he died in 1994.   He was sixty years old.

The matter would have rested there until in 2008 a huge police investigation began into activities at a Care Home on the Island of Jersey.   Haut de la Garenne was named by past ‘inmates’ as a place where cruel, sadistic and degrading behaviour was meted out to the children there.

Paisnel’s wife Joan had been employed at the home over the years where she once had her husband, ‘The Beast’, play Father Christmas......................The mind boggles.....

-------------Mike------------