Convicted Kenneally suggests his sexual abuse of young boys was ‘consensual’
SERIAL sex abuser Bill Kenneally has questioned why his victims took so long to come forward and also claimed that one had said he wanted to be ‘part of it’.
The former Waterford basketball coach made the remarks, which caused upset to victims and families in the gallery, while giving evidence at the Commission of Investigation in Dublin examining the response of gardaí and others to allegations of sexual abuse made against him.
During his evidence, Kenneally asked if it was a criminal offence to supply alcohol to young boys and girls, and suggested victims had consented to what he had done. He repeatedly claimed the commission and lawyers for the victims were exceeding the commission’s terms of reference. He also attempted to differentiate between the abuse of boys under 15 and anything that had taken place when boys were older.
To sharp intakes of breath from victims and their families in the gallery, Kenneally claimed one of the victims had said himself that he wanted to be ‘part of it’.
Judge Michael White said Kenneally had attempted to minimise his behaviour in his evidence.
He also said Kenneally had treated the commission as a ‘bit of a circus’ yesterday and that he
Treating it ‘as a bit of a circus’
was ‘not having it’.
The retired judge, who is chairing the commission, said he was not concerned with the substance of Kenneally’s actions, but was dealing with how the abuse was handled. He also said this went beyond the criminal sphere into child protection issues.
Kenneally, in his early 70s and formerly of Summerville Avenue, Waterford city, is serving a prison term after pleading guilty to ten sample counts of indecently assaulting ten boys at locations in Waterford in the 1980s.
Also at the hearing yesterday, Kenneally said he ‘probably’ would have confessed to abusing teenage boys if gardaí had acted on information they received two years before he had initially spoken to officers about his crimes. Kenneally said that by 1985, he knew his abuse was wrong and that he needed to stop.
He was also questioned as to what his cousin, former Fianna Fáil TD Brendan Kenneally, knew about his sex abuse. The commission was told that both men went to a basketball tournament in Cork in 1981 with a number young players. Brendan Kenneally was in charge of allocating the hotel rooms, and it was put to Bill Kenneally that Brendan put him in a room with one of his victims. Barrister Ray Motherway, representing two of the victims, said his client, referred to as A12, shared a room with Bill Kenneally and ‘suffered horrific abuse’ and that the following morning, Brendan Kenneally had asked A12 if he ‘had fun last night’. The commission is also examining Basketball Ireland, as well as politicians and members of the Catholic Church. During proceedings on Tuesday, Bill Kenneally said he told gardaí in a 1987 meeting about his abuse of teenage boys, but ‘heard nothing’ from gardaí again on the matter until 25 years later. It emerged yesterday that one of his victims had told gardaí he was abused by Kenneally as early as 1985, but claimed they did not act on the information. Giving evidence yesterday, Kenneally
also refused to accept that he ruined the lives of his victims.
Mr Motherway told the commission that there was an incident in 1985 involving one of Kenneally’s victims. Kenneally was shown pictures of the survivors, referred to as A12 and A8, and confirmed he was aware of both them. Mr Motherway said his client, A8, stated that Kenneally picked him up in his vehicle and he was abused by him.
He said he went to a Garda station the following morning, gave Kenneally’s name and said he had been ‘sexually abused’.
However, the victim claims he was told by gardaí that there was nothing they could do for him without an adult present.
The commission was told that this conversation happened in 1985, two years before Kenneally was spoken to by gardaí about his abuse of teenage boys.
‘This occurred in June 1985 and by 1987, you went for interview with An Garda Síochána,’ Mr Motherway added.
Kenneally was asked whether, by that stage, he would have held his hands up and whether his position had changed in respect of his viewing of offending. Kenneally said he felt that he needed help and that he needed to stop.
He agreed that on the day he spoke to gardaí, on December 30, 1987, his admission to the abuse ‘had been coming for some time’. He agreed that he realised he wanted to be stopped and that by 1985, he realised the errors of his ways. ‘Did you know what you were doing was wrong?’ Mr Motherway asked.
‘I probably did,’ Kenneally replied. He was asked whether if gardaí had acted on that information and knocked on his door, would he have ‘had it in his heart to tell them?’
‘I probably would have,’ he told the commission.
Asked what gardaí would have found if they had searched his home at the time, in 1985, Kenneally said they would have found orange twine, handcuffs, scissors as well as a flash lamp.
He also told the commission he kept photographs of boys in a shoebox in a bedroom.
Barrister Barra McGrory, representing several victims, put to Kenneally whether he accepted that he had ruined their lives.
Kenneally told the commission that ‘if I did, I don’t know why it took them 30 years to come forward’. He also told the commission that the sexual assault of children and teenagers without sodomy was ‘totally disregarded’ in the early 1980s, but was ‘seen more as a crime’ in the late 1980s.
Judge White expressed concern that the convicted abuser was retracting matters that were put forward by his defence lawyers when he was sentenced for the first time eight years ago.
At the conclusion of yesterday’s hearing, Judge White read a portion of a report by a psychotherapist who gave evidence in Kenneally’s defence at his sentencing hearing in 2016.
The judge said he was concerned Kenneally was now resiling from what the psychotherapist had said, but Kenneally said he accepted it. Kenneally will be called back after Easter to face further questions from lawyers for An Garda Síochána and the commission itself.
‘I probably would have’