The Jersey Way.

I couldn't really believe what I saw on the island of Jersey – so I had to pull the raw audio. (Actually, my co-host, Reggie, pulled the raw audio. I just flew to the the island.)

I don’t even know how to begin to write this month’s column.

With the Jersey senator who escaped the island for the USA, fearing for his life?

With the political meetings that sought to block or shut down any questions about child abuse — after more than 70 years of abuse of children on the island?

Or with the brave few, who continue to fight for child protection in Jersey? (See above for some of them: Cheyenne O’Connor (center, taking photo) and Neil McMurray (far right). Both are parents and prominent children’s rights advocates. I am on the far left.)

This was my first time visiting Jersey since the pandemic. While it is a tiny, five-by-nine-mile island, it wields outsized power as a $2 trillion tax shelter that enjoys the patronage of Wall Street and the City of London and the protection of the UK Queen.

Located just off the coast of France, it is the largest of the five Channel Islands — and I arrived just in time for a number of political “meet-and-greets” with the candidates, called “hustings” in Jersey, in advance of its parliamentary elections.

Sometimes these meetings take place in churches, such as in the photo above. This reminds me a lot of the small-town meetings that often take place in New England, where I grew up.

Sometimes there are quite a few candidates vying for seats in the island’s parliament (as was the case here, with two rows of candidates facing the audience).

And sometimes these candidates have faced credible allegations of inappropriate behavior involving minors.

Two such candidates appear in the above photo, with the allegations known to all in the room. Yet these candidates ran for re-election in Jersey’s parliament and were actively protected from answering any questions about the accusations leveled against them, already publicly reported here and here.

This was because the meeting’s moderator, Peter Mourant (who you can hear clearly in the audio of the podcast I share below) would not allow members of the public to ask such questions, stating “that’s getting too personal.”

This is despite the fact both candidates held public posts focused on safeguarding children — and one of them was arrested. Neither was re-elected, yet this was not down to Jersey law enforcement or its un-elected Crown officers, who run the island and are appointed by the Queen. It was down to the wisdom of Jersey’s voters.

The shutting down of key questions, asked at this heated gathering in Jersey’s parish of St. Saviour, is a prime example of what many of the islanders call “The Jersey Way,” a catch-all term for the island’s lack of accountability to its voters, its deficits in democracy and its miscarriages of justice, frequently expressed by cracking down on perfectly reasonable questions, dissent, or opposition through bullying, shaming, threats — even targeted attacks and imprisoning people.

Hearing the audience at this meeting kick up a ruckus over the moderator disallowing a question about child protection — then taking another question about how the candidates are influenced by “the God witnessed by Jesus Christ” says it all. If you listen, you can hear a sitting member of Jersey’s parliament, Monty Tadier, incredulously object from the back of the room, “Is this not a continuation of the Jersey Way?”

I could write reams about Jersey and not accomplish what can be accomplished by audio clips from these political meetings. That’s why weaving the voices of those from Jersey directly into the second episode of Column C is so important.

Seeing is believing. But if you can’t be there, hearing is believing, too.

P.S. Also in this episode: We cover why Jersey’s former senator and health minister, Stuart Syvret, left the island ahead of its elections. I had a chance to meet with him in person on the island shortly before he left. He will appear on a future episode of Column C to tell his story himself, so stay tuned.

Thanks, as always, for listening, sharing and supporting this column.