London  - British police investigating a long-running suspected child abuse scandal in a care home on the Channel island of Jersey said for the first time Wednesday that they believed human remains found there could "suggest homicide."

The remains, consisting of 30 bone fragments and 7 milk teeth, were found in bricked-up cellar rooms at the former Haut de la Garenne children's home during extensive searches over the past few months.

Police said they now believed that the remains were "definitely" those of a child, or children, although the precise dating of the items still had to be confirmed in laboratory tests.

Deputy police chief Lenny Harper said the finds suggested that a body, or bodies, may have been cremated in a fireplace at the former children's home.

The bones, which were likely to be from more than one child, showed "some degree of burning," said Harper. One or two of the bones were cut, which could "indicate suspicious death or homicide," he added, while stressing that no homicide inquiry had yet been launched.

Haut de la Garenne became the centre of a historic abuse inquiry in February after the discovery of what was believed at the time to be part of a child's skull.

Those fragments, however, are now believed to have been "either wood or coconut."

Police believe there could have been up to 160 abuse victims at the home, which was closed in 1986. A number of witnesses have come forward describing the existence of underground punishment rooms where they were drugged, raped and beaten.

Harper said there were more than 70 suspects, but only one arrest had been made so far. "They will all be questioned and most of them will be arrested," he said Wednesday. (dpa)