‘I feel sense of duty that his name is cleared’
A FAMILY is still hoping for justice for their ancestor, who was sentenced to hard labour and imprisonment for stealing sausages and tins of butter and meat and alcohol during the Occupation.
Former police constable William Quin was 45 when he was sentenced to four years’ hard labour for theft by the German military court and 16 months by Guernsey’s Royal Court.
It is believed the confessions made by the police officers were given under duress.
His great-granddaughter, Jenna Holloway, 30, said she had found out about his story only recently.
‘I almost feel it as a sense of duty that his name should be cleared,’ she said.
Mr Quin was born in Guernsey and served in the cavalry during the First World War, He was gassed and suffered from trench foot. After he returned to the island he became a police officer in 1921, a job he held during the Occupation.
After being sentenced, he was taken to Caen prison and then transferred to Fort de Villeneuve-Saint-Georges in Paris, where food consisted of a semi-starvation diet and each prisoner, in turn, would receive a beating.
When he was liberated, he hitch-hiked his way to Cologne and then flew from Brussels, returning to the UK as a returning British soldier – a prisoner of war.
When he returned to Guernsey he was not allowed to rejoin the police. Instead he worked in a bicycle shop.
He passed away in 1972 and Mrs Holloway’s father, Graham Le Maitre, has only a few memories of his grandfather.
Then when Mrs Holloway’s great uncle, [former deputy] Francis Quin, died in 2019, the family discovered a treasure trove of family history documents. It also showed the strain William Quin was under after he came back.
His daughter, Moyra, married Mrs Holloway’s grandfather, Rodney Le Maitre, who kept a diary. It revealed that he was warned by his family not to ask William about his ‘alleged misdemeanour’.
‘He had a sense that he [William] was a bad man,’ Mrs Holloway said.
It also revealed how Mr Quin suffered after the war with a very bad memory and struggled to recall his time in France.
‘He must have suffered from PTSD,’ said Mrs Holloway.
It had been fascinating looking into her family history, but it had also left her frustrated that her great grandfather had suffered and then not had his name cleared.
