Edward Paisnel
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Edward Paisnel, titled the Beast of Jersey, was a notorious paedophile who terrorised the Channel Island of Jersey for a period of eleven years from 1960. He infamously dressed in a rubber mask and nail-studded wristlets, attacking women and children, and would visit Haut de la Garenne care home dressed as Santa Claus.[1]
Suspicion, both official and social, for the attacks initially fell on an eccentric agricultural worker and fisherman, Alphonse Le Gastelois, who was arrested as the prime suspect but released through lack of evidence. Public suspicion remained so strong that Le Gastelois' cottage was burnt down in an act of arson.[2] Le Gastelois, fearing for his life, fled to Les Écréhous where he spent 14 years in self-imposed exile on La Marmotière as the second self-styled king of the Écréhous[3] despite being cleared of suspicion when the attacks of the Beast of Jersey continued unabated.
On 17 July 1971 Edward Paisnel was arrested attempting to evade a police roadblock set up following an attack on a 17-year-old girl. In his car were discovered elements of his "Beast" costume. In December 1971 he was convicted of 13 counts of assault, rape and sodomy and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He died in prison in 1994.
[edit] External links
- ^ "Beast of Jersey paedophile Edward Paisnel was known to visit children’s home", Simon de Bruxelles and David Brown, The Times, 2008-2-26. Retrieved on 2008-03-01.
- ^ Histoire des Minquiers et des Ecréhou, Robert Sinsoilliez, St Malo 1995, ISBN 2905970979
- ^ Jersey Witches, Ghosts & Traditions, Hillsdon, Norwich 1987, ISBN 071170371X
