Timeline: Jersey's decades of abuse

The inquiry will focus on the former Haut de la Garenne children's home in the 1960s

The Independent Jersey Care Inquiry is investigating child abuse in Jersey's care system since 1945.

It will focus on - but is not restricted to - the Haut de la Garenne care home during the 1960s.

The inquiry will also cover events surrounding the three-year police investigation dubbed Operation Rectangle, which began in 2007.

Hundreds of allegations of child abuse emerged but Operation Rectangle itself became a subject of criticism.

1960: Jersey Home for Boys merges with Jersey Home for Girls and is renamed Haut de la Garenne.

1981: The UK Department of Health and Social Services conducts a critical review of Jersey's care provision. Its authors say the whole system needs "urgent appraisal" and recommend closure of Haut de la Garenne.

1986: Haut de la Garenne is closed.

1989: First conviction for abuse offences in Jersey's care system is of a man who ran a "family group home" with his wife. He was convicted of sexual offences against children in the 1960s.

1998: Jane and Allan Maguire, another couple who ran a group home, are charged with abuse offences but the case is eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence. In 2008 BBC Panorama detailed a catalogue of abuse and tracked the couple to France.

BBC Panorama tracked down Allan Maguire, alive and well, in France in 2008

2006: States of Jersey Police begin a long-running covert investigation into child abuse, which is later dubbed Operation Rectangle and publicised in 2007.

July 2007: Senator Stuart Syvret, the island's health minister from 2005, accuses the government of decades of child protection failings.

Stuart Syvret, right, continues to campaign on child safety issues

August 2007: The States Assembly announces a review of child protection but the ensuing political scandal leads to a vote of no confidence in Senator Syvret. He returns to the backbenches where he continues to campaign on child abuse issues. He is disqualified from States membership in 2010.

Stuart Syvret later served two prison sentences for what he calls "politically-motivated" charges. He continues campaigning.

February 2008: Operation Rectangle, now the centre of global media attention, begins to focus on the Haut de la Garenne care home. Police discover "skull fragments".

In 2008, islanders held an anti-abuse rally called Time4Change

March 2008: A public rally in St Helier highlights concern over the way abuse claims at Haut de la Garenne were handled.

May 2008: News emerges that what police originally thought were bone fragments discovered in February at Haut de la Garenne are more likely wood or coconut shell.

July 2008: Labour MP Austin Mitchell tables a Commons motion calling on the UK government to hold an inquiry into Jersey child abuse allegations. He says he has no confidence in a public inquiry by Jersey authorities.

September 2008: Jersey's Attorney General, William Bailhache, defends the island's legal system, following allegations of a "cover-up".

November 2008: Chief of Police Graham Power is suspended over his handling of Operation Rectangle. His performance becomes subject to a separate £1m investigation by Wiltshire Police. Mr Power accuses ministers of "a state-sponsored, taxpayer-funded personal vendetta". He says politicians "interfered" with police investigations and "closed ranks" with civil servants.

Mr Power retires in 2010. That year, his suspension is described as unfair by the Napier Report and he says he has been exonerated.

Graham Power, Jersey's one-time police chief, alleged political interference in the abuse investigation

June 2009: In the first Operation Rectangle prosecution, Michael Aubin, 46, a former resident at Haut de la Garenne and also a victim of abuse, admits abusing other boys between 1977 and 1980. He was sentenced to probation and immediately freed, having spent 19 months on remand.

August 2009: Claude James Donnelly is jailed for 15 years for rape and indecent assault.

September 2009: Gordon Claude Wateridge is sentenced for three offences of indecent assault on girls under 16 between 1969 and 1979 at Haut de la Garenne.

Leonard Miles Vandenborn was jailed for 12 years for rape and indecent assault

November 2009: Ronald George Thorne sentenced to 12 months in jail for gross indecency between 1983 and 1984.

2010: Leonard Miles Vandenborn is sentenced to 12 years for rape and indecent assault in the 1970s and 1980s.

January 2011: Anthony and Morag Jordan found guilty of assaults on children during the 1970s and 1980s and sentenced to six and nine months respectively.

Anthony and Morag Jordan were found guilty of assaulting children

February 2011: Senator Francis Le Gresley lodges a proposition in the States Assembly demanding a public inquiry.

March 2012: Victims of abuse are offered up to £60,000 compensation, without the need for a court hearing.

October 2012: Several islanders complain they were abused by Jimmy Savile in Jersey. At least one complains he was assaulted by the entertainer at Haut de la Garenne in the 1970s.

Jimmy Savile visited Jersey in the 1970s

March 2013: States Assembly unanimously agrees the framework for an independent inquiry into historical child abuse. Chief Minister Ian Gorst blames the delay on his own "cautious approach over the terms of reference".

July 2013: The inquiry is delayed when its chair, Sally Bradley QC, suffers a stroke. She is eventually replaced by Frances Oldham QC, who promises to be "fearless and robust".

Frances Oldham QC promised to be fearless and robust

2014: As the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry finally gets under way in July, campaigners including MP John Hemming continue their calls for UK authorities to include Jersey in a forthcoming nation-wide child abuse inquiry.