Jersey police said today they would prosecute anyone who attempts to intimidate witnesses or victims in their growing child abuse inquiry.
The island's deputy police chief Lenny Harper said they had investigated reports that a former member of staff at the Haut de la Garenne home had contacted a witness in the last 36 hours.
Harper said the worker and anyone else who contacts witnesses to get them to change their story or keep away from the police could face charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
"It's a stark warning to them -- we will not tolerate this," he told a news conference. "We will not tolerate it, we will see it as a serious criminal offence and we will deal with it."
He gave no more details about the former care worker who had approached a witness.
"We know that it has happened in the last 36 hours," he added. "We have established that it happened and we are dealing with it."
Police are searching the former children's home as part of an inquiry into abuse on Jersey between the 1950s and 2003.
More than 160 people have contacted police saying they were abused at the house.
Delicate and painstaking forensic work is continuing in cramped dusty conditions in one of two bricked-up secret underground chambers found during the inquiry.
The underground room has been identified by many of the victims.