A 75-year-old former member of the Brothers of Charity who sexually abused orphans and mildly handicapped children at the Lota Children's Home in Cork is to be released after serving 18 months of a 36year sentence.
Judge A.G. Murphy told Cork Circuit Criminal Court that when James Kelly, known as Brother Ambrose, is released next February, he will have to reside in Britain, and never return to Ireland.
Kelly had been serving a 36year sentence at the Curragh Camp prison for offences committed in the 1950s and 1960s at the Cork children's home, where he had sexually abused three boys in his care.
He had been sentenced to 18 consecutive two-year sentences in November 1999 at Cork Circuit Criminal Court. At the time of sentencing, Judge Murphy said the bottomless evil of Kelly's actions had rendered the victims' lives little short of a permanent execution.
Kelly will serve the remainder of a separate sentence for offences committed in Galway during the 1960s. The Cork man had sexually abused 10 children, aged from nine to 14, over a 3-1/2-year period in the 1960s.
During that time he was principal at the Holy Family School in Renmore, Galway.
A help-line was set up in 1999 following an admission by Kelly that he couldn't remember the names of all the boys he abused. The help-line received over 96 calls and four further formal complaints were made against him.
Kelly's poor health was a factor in his early release. His sentence was reviewed because of his plea of guilty to 18 sample charges out of 72 counts of indecent assault for which he accepted responsibility.
Suspending the balance of Kelly's sentence yesterday, Judge Murphy said the court had a duty to mark the enormity of Kelly's crimes with a lengthy jail sentence. However, it also had a duty to recognise the man had realised that what he was doing was wrong some time in the 1970s, years before his crimes were detected.