Daughter of policeman convicted in Occupation wants pardon
THE daughter of one of 17 police officers sentenced to years of hard labour during the Second World War for stealing from the Nazi occupying forces is calling on the States to posthumously pardon the group before she dies.
Rose Short, 91, had been evacuated to the UK with the rest of her family when her father, Sergeant Frederick Duquemin, and some of his police colleagues were convicted by both the Germans and the local authorities in the Royal Court for crimes including theft and receiving stolen goods.
It is believed the officers took food from the occupying forces with the intention of distributing it to local civilians during food shortages. Most of them were deported to prisons and forced labour camps in Europe.
An attempt to overturn their convictions later failed and they were not allowed to return to their jobs or collect their pensions.
Mrs Short said that the German government had previously admitted that the officers were victims of Nazi persecution, but the States had always withheld its verdict, which her father had been bitter about.
‘I just want things to move on,’ she said. ‘I’m in my nineties now and I want pardons from the States before I die.’
The Policy & Resources Committee had agreed to resolve the issue on multiple occasions in recent years.
But last week it pulled something of a surprise in announcing that it had concluded that the most appropriate approach would not be to pardon, but to make a ‘conciliatory statement’, which could form part of the island marking the 80th anniversary of Liberation Day.
It said a more detailed public statement would be made when the plans had been more fully developed.
Mrs Short said she was puzzled upon hearing that P&R had consulted ‘indirectly’ with families of the convicted officers, which the committee said had been done through an interlocutor.
‘I haven’t been consulted,’ she said.
One of the officers’ families’ biggest supporters in the States, Deputy Gavin St Pier, said he was disappointed that P&R was not proceeded with pardons, having previously indicated that it would.
‘By any standard, these convictions are unsafe,’ he said. ‘Confessions were beaten out of the men by the German military authorities. I accept that delivering pardons now is not without legal complication but, of course, it could be done if the will was there.’
He added that he was disappointed to learn that views were only sought from families ‘indirectly.’
‘I hope their views will now be taken into account.
‘All these years later, no-one wants to sit in judgement of those living on the island during the Occupation, facing unimaginable stresses and deprivations.
‘However, that should not prevent us acknowledging that there were injustices.’
