The Channel Island of Jersey is a popular travel destination with British tourists as well as being an international financial centre.
It is the most southerly island of the British Isles and lies just 14 miles off the coast of northern France.
The island has a resident population of around 92,500 people and covers an area of 45 square miles, much of which is unspoilt countryside, according to Jersey Tourism.
It is a dependency of the British Crown with its own parliament and legislation, but is not part of the United Kingdom or the EU.
The capital St Helier has the largest population and is home to around 30 percent of the island's residents.
Traditionally the island's economy has been centred around agriculture, fishing and knitwear, but since the 1960s finance has dominated with the low rate of income tax (20 percent) attracting financial institutions and wealthy individuals.
Over the past five decades Jersey has developed into an international financial centre and is now home to 45 banks and over 33,000 registered companies.
The island is also a popular tourism destination with nearly 700,000 visiting in 2009, the majority of which came from the UK.
In 2008, the island became the focus of one of the largest child abuse investigations ever conducted in the British Isles.
It was launched after more than 100 former residents of the Haut de la Garenne care home came forward to report historic abuse by members of staff.
Police excavated a number of sites at the former Victorian school and orphanage, dubbed by the media as the “house of horrors”, discovering a network of secret underground chambers where victims alleged they were abused.
The multimillion-pound investigation led to a handful of convictions including those of former houseparents Morag and Anthony Jordan who were jailed in June for assaulting child residents and former carer Gordon Wateridge who was jailed for a string of sex attacks during the 1970s.
Crime in Jersey reached a 10-year low earlier this year.
Just under 1,600 crimes were recorded in the first five months of 2011, an 11 percent drop compared to the same period last year and nearly a third less than in 2004, according to The States of Jersey Police.
The force currently employs 236 police officers and about 90 civilian staff. - Belfast Telegraph