Police investigating allegations of child abuse have charged a 68-year-old man in connection with a number of rapes and indecent assaults.

Claude Donnelly, of St Brelade, Jersey, has been accused of rape, indecent assault and gross indecency. He is due to appear before St Helier Magistrates tomorrow.

The arrest was not directly connected with the Haut de la Garenne former children’s home, the police said. There are several parallel inquiries under way in Jersey, involving other children’s homes and the island’s Sea Scouts.

Experts are still sifting through the contents of four underground rooms at Haut de la Garenne, where bone and blood-stained clothing were found. Anthropologists and archaeologists are due to begin the detailed excavation on Friday of two cellar rooms where bone fragments and teeth were found.

Since the inquiry began more than 100 people have claimed that they were abused since the 1960s at the home, which closed in 1986. The investigation team hopes to make more arrests and said there are still about 160 victims and 40 suspects in the inquiry.

So far only one man has been charged in connection with the inquiry. Gordon Wateridge, 76, is charged with three offences of indecent assault on girls under 16 between 1969 and 1979, when he was a warder at the home.

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