Two items of ‘significant interest’ have been found by Jersey police searching the cellar of a former care home at the centre of a child abuse inquiry.
Officers found the items beneath the Haut de la Garenne house as part of their investigation into abuse on the island between the 1950s and 2003.
The island's deputy police chief Lenny Harper said abuse victims had mentioned the items in their descriptions of the cellar at the home in St Martin.
He refused to identify the objects and declined to comment on media reports that officers had found shackles and a bath in the cellar.
They are significant because they are items that victims told us were there in the cellar ... when the offences were committed,’ he told a news conference. ‘They certainly help corroborate accounts given by victims.’
A search dog trained to find human remains started barking when it entered a bricked up cellar at the former care home earlier this week.
The dog's ‘extremely strong reaction’ was the same as when it helped find a child's remains buried under inches of concrete at the house last weekend.
The underground room has been identified by many of the 160 people who have contacted police saying they were victims of child abuse.
Mr Harper said police believe two other areas beneath the house need to be searched. The searches could take weeks because the cellars are full of building rubble and dust.
The police inquiry now has more than 40 suspects. One person has been arrested and charged and Harper said there would be arrests.
Children's charity the NSPCC said it has received more than 100 calls reporting allegations of abuse on the island, with more than a third coming in the past two days.
