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Guernsey's Children's Convenor has refused to reveal what happens under its jurisdiction to young people referred to its board for serious crimes.
Express asked what will happen to the 17-year-old referred to the Convenor following his arrest in the aftermath of last week's bomb hoax at Beau Sejour, but we were told the organisation "cannot discuss individual cases."
Similarly, it has never been reported what happened to a juvenile who was referred to the convenor for a bomb hoax against Waitrose at Admiral Park during 2017.
Following last week's bomb hoax at Beau Sejour, Guernsey Police said that a woman in her 30s was arrested, and subsequently released with no further action to be taken, while the 17-year-old who was also arrested was referred to the Children's Convenor. When Express followed up with the Convenor to enquire what would happen next we were told: "we are unable to discuss any specific cases."
Further questions received a similar response:
"As all of our work involves juveniles, we cannot discuss individual cases. However, we publish a significant amount of detail on our website about our work. This includes information about the role of the Children’s Convenor, and the Child, Youth and Community Tribunal. We also publish annual reports. For more information, please visit convenor.org.gg"
Pictured: The Children's Convenor website which does contain three previous years annual reports as well as information about the work of the Convenor service
Guernsey's Children's Convenor, Karen Brady, is supported in her work by an eight strong panel of people from different backgrounds including education, health, social work and law.
The Convenor's website states that although the majority of referrals to the Children’s Convenor are from the police and the Health and Social Care Committee, "anyone, including members of the public, may refer a child to the Convenor." The Convenor will then investigate that referral, evaluate the information available and decide "whether there may be a need for compulsory intervention. If so, the child is referred to a Hearing of the Child, Youth and Community Tribunal (CYCT)."
Before a Hearing the child and their family or carers will be invited to attend a Convenor’s Meeting to consider the Grounds for Referral (the legal reasons for the Hearing) and "a Hearing will only go ahead once the Grounds for Referral are accepted by the child and family. If however, the Grounds for Referral are not accepted, the Convenor may refer the matter to the Guernsey Juvenile Court for a decision to be made."
The website states that most cases of criminal offending among young people will be referred by Guernsey Police to the Convenor, however in some cases of more serious or persistent offending and also road traffic offences for which the young person might be disqualified from driving, the matter will also be reported by the police to HM Procureur who may decide that the matter should be dealt with by a court, and not the CYCT.
The court may, in some cases, refer the case to the CYCT following a finding of guilt, if it feels the CYCT is the best way of dealing with the child.
In the case of the young person referred to the Convenor for the bomb hoax at Waitrose in 2017, we have been unable to find out what happened once they were referred to the system. From statistics found in the 2017 annual report, one can presume the juvenile was among the majority of referrals made by Guernsey Police.
Of 288 referrals received by the Convenor in 2017; 210 were offence related and 78 were non-offence referrals. Law Enforcement were the main source of all referrals comprising 74%.
Pictured: Pie chart from the 2017 annual report published by the Children's Convenor
Out of the summary of data for 2017, the Convenor website said "there was a small increase in the overall number of referrals received" with "the number of children referred on offence grounds increased while the number of children referred on non-offence grounds decreased."
The most common reason for referral to the Convenor during 2017 was that the young person had committed an offence which reflected the pattern seen since 2010.
The most common reason for referral of a child or young person to the CYCT by the Convenor was because they were suffering or were likely to suffer significant impairment to their health or development (58%). This follows the pattern of the previous two years.
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