A far-reaching sex offenders register much wider in scope than that in England and Wales is to be set up on Jersey after alleged abuse at a former children’s home, the island’s chief law officer has told The Times.

William Bailhache, QC, the Attorney-General, also said that if a police inquiry led to lengthy trials, a judge from outside the island was likely to be brought in to handle them.

In his first interview since taking up his post in 2000, Mr Bailhache, 54, who would be responsible for any prosecutions arising from the investigation, predicted legislation in the autumn for a sex offenders register.

A consultation paper would be issued shortly, he said. This would go farther than the register in England and Wales by allowing offenders convicted before the legislation took effect to be placed on the register on application to a court. “This is a matter we have had under review for some time,” he said.

About a hundred people have claimed to have suffered abuse at the children’s home, Haut de la Garenne, between the mid-1940s and 1990. A total of 70 suspects, or people “of interest” to the police, have been identified.

Mr Bailhache rejected suggestions that justice could not be seen to be done if handled locally and said that it was for Jersey and its 800-year-old independent legal system to tackle the problem. If, though, there were trials that involved several defendants who pleaded not guilty and that were going to be lengthy, the normal practice would be to bring in an outside judge.

A trial involving a guilty plea would not happen at the earliest before six to nine months.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that justice can be done,” he said. “The Jersey Royal Court is very well respected. When any community, wherever it is, has this sort of problem, the community must deal with it.”

The problem could not just be “shovelled off to anywhere else”, he added. “This is a problem we must deal with ourselves and be seen to deal with. It’s a sort of cartharsis. That’s the way I believe the island will look at it.”

The decision on whether to prosecute falls to the Attorney-General. But critics point out that his brother, Philip Bailhache, QC, is the Bailiff or senior judge on the island, creating a conflict of interest.

To deflect that, the Attorney-General has instructed two external Crown advocates who have also practised extensively in London to conduct the prosecutions. “Both because of their competence and because of media and public discussion about conflicts of interest, I thought it desirable to show there is not going to be any impediment to bringing prosecutions where the evidential test is passed,” he said.

The question of conflict is not just an academic one. Within months of Mr Bailhache becoming Attorney-General, a prosecution brought in his name (although started by his predecessor) came before his brother.

Defence barristers brought a challenge on the ground that there could not be a fair trial. The Bailiff did not step down and his stance was backed by the Court of Appeal, consisting of three English QCs.

William Bailhache said: “You have to be very clear in a small place what your duties are and perform them with integrity . . . and as far as I am concerned, the Bailiff performs his functions objectively, impartially and with integrity, and I’m quite sure I do the same. And people in Jersey, so far as I am aware, do not have a difficulty with that.”

The investigation had some way to go before the prosecution made its decisions, he said. The bones that had been found needed to be dated and, if possible, DNA samples taken. “Then assuming they find the bones are from a particular time and assuming they can find whose they are, maybe you are a stage of saying how that person came to die and maybe you are at the stage of making further investigations . . . but it’s quite a big leap, isn’t it, from a piece of bone to say a murder has taken place? I am not saying it hasn’t, just that it is too early.”

As to the wider fallout, Mr Bailhache said: “The first question is: how do you deal with what has happened in the past? And second: make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

On the second, he said that a report would show that childcare arrangements were good, but could be better. “As to the first, the only way we can come out of this appropriately is to show we have faced up to what happened, investigated properly and delivered justice. And that is what we are absolutely determined we should do. And if we do that, I hope the rest of the world will say: at least they have done that properly.”

— A 45-year-old man is due to appear in court in Jersey this morning, charged with sex offences against boys at the Haut de la Garenne children’s home. Michael Aubin, originally from Jersey but now living in Southampton, is the third person to be charged as a result of the police investigation into allegations of child abuse on the island.

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