It is now a week since the girl was attacked by a stranger next to the Gorey Common bus stop as she waited for her mother to pick her up on Halloween night.
On Thursday evening, officers are due to carry out a reconstruction of the victim’s movements before she was attacked to help jog the memories of anyone who was in the area. Images and videos of the reconstruction are due to be shared by all of the Island’s media.
To date, the 24 detectives and police staff working on the case – codenamed Operation Hectre – have visited more than 200 homes in the area, analysed hours of CCTV footage from more than 15 private cameras and received in excess of 50 calls from members of the public.
An officer from Devon and Cornwall police has travelled to the Island to help the investigating team with specialist software – called HOLMES after the fictional detective – which is used by forces across the United Kingdom during major investigations. And detectives, the force say, are in regular contact with colleagues from the National Crime Agency.
Detective Superintendent Stewart Gull, head of crime services for the States police, told the JEP: ‘We are currently assessing in excess of 24 persons of interest who have come into the inquiry from various means.’
There is no suggestion any of those are potential suspects.
Det Supt Gull also stressed that colleagues within Customs and Special Branch had been briefed on the suspect’s description and were ‘monitoring movement’ at the ports.
The victim was approached at the bus stop as she waited for her mother
to pick her up. She left a party at 11.30pm.
A Liberty Bus drove past the stop twice, once at 11.53pm and once at 12.06pm. On-board CCTV captured images of the person the force believe to be the victim standing next to the stop.
Det Supt Gull said the force were working on the theory that the attacked happened ‘in and around midnight’.
Her mother, the detective said, arrived at the scene shortly after the attack and then contacted the police at about 12.45am ‘having driven into St Helier’. The victim was then taken to the Island’s sexual assault referral centre, Dewberry House, on Route du Fort.
Her attacker is described as approximately 40 to 50 years old, about 5ft 9in tall, stocky or muscular with dark brown hair and a grey beard. He was wearing a large, padded coat that was too long in the arms and a baseball cap under a hood. He spoke with a ‘foreign accent’.
The force are still urging anyone with any information to come forward. Appeals for information have been shared in Polish, Portuguese and Romanian and posters displayed at key locations.
The JEP also printed a poster on page nine of Tuesday’s edition and encouraged business-owners to display it.
The key time period the police are interested in is between 11.30pm on Thursday 31 October and 12.30am on Friday 1 November.
Anyone with information should call 612214 or 612612. Disclosures can also be made anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.
