Jason Clancy, one of the survivors of serial sex abuser Bill Kenneally, has described the death of the former sports coach as “a strange release” that gave him “extra closure”. He said he was “so glad [Kenneally] got to read the report ... before he passed”.
Kenneally’s death at the age of 75, announced on Thursday, comes just over a week after the publication of a report on the response by State agencies to abuse committed by Kenneally in the 1980s.
Kenneally was 10 years into an 18½-year sentence for the sexual assault of 15 teenagers in Waterford in the 1970s and 1980s. He was serving the sentence in Midlands Prison and had been suffering ill health in recent weeks.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said last week that survivors of Kenneally’s abuse would get a State apology owing to failures by public bodies identified in the report.
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“I take no pleasure in anyone’s death but hearing that Kenneally has died feels like the universe has given us yet more closure,” Clancy told The Irish Times. “Last week we had closure when the commission of investigation published its report and now Kenneally is gone as well, so we have just got full, full, closure now.
“At the same time, I am so glad that he got to read the report and to see that we are getting a State apology before he passed and that he could see in black and white all the damage that he has done to so many lives. He could be under no illusions about the effect of his crimes.”
Last week, survivors of Kenneally’s abuse welcomed O’Callaghan’s decision to consider introducing a criminal offence of misconduct in public office in light of a deficiency in the law highlighted in the report by the commission chaired by retired High Court judge Michael White. O’Callaghan is set to ask the Law Reform Commission to examine the issue.
Another survivor of Kenneally’s abuse, Colin Power, said he was unmoved by Kenneally’s death, although he found the timing “very strange”.
“Ultimately, [Kenneally’s death] doesn’t have any impact on me, good, bad or indifferent – my concerns were that he would be brought to justice. He spent the last 10 years in prison, where he should be, and I think he saw all of us vindicated by Judge White’s report.
“The admission that the State was going to give us an apology was very important and that’s why I think the timing is very strange – on Tuesday, talking to the Minister, he told us we would get a State apology and then 48 hours later, [Kenneally] passes away.
“I’m just glad that he was around to see us vindicated, glad that he served time in jail for the crimes he committed but, other than that, I have no real feelings. It doesn’t affect me whether he is still alive or passed.”
Barry Murphy, another survivor of Kenneally’s abuse, said he was still trying to process the death but suggested he drew some comfort from knowing he no longer risked encountering Kenneally in Waterford.
“The overriding sense for me, if I’m brutally honest ... it was always a part of me and at the back of my mind, wondering, what happens when he gets out? Does he get out? Does he come back to Waterford and will we have to face him here again? Because he was absolutely brazen,” said Murphy.
“There was no remorse about him at all when he testified at the commission. He was bullish and combative and he was the type of guy who thought he had this untouchable aura about him, and he would come back to Waterford, and everything would go back to normality.
“That was always there at the back of my mind: how would I deal with it if I met him here in Waterford? So when you read this morning that he’s gone, well, that removes that issue and his passing goes an awful long way to putting this whole thing to bed once and for all.”
Another survivor of Kenneally’s abuse, Kevin Keating, said he would have liked to have seen Kenneally serve out his sentence in full.
“I would have preferred to see Kenneally serve every second of his sentence,” Keating said. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s got away lightly because we’ve had 40-plus years of thinking about this whereas he’s served just over half of his sentence and all the time believing he was hard done by.
“I was delighted when he took his appeal against his sentence for us and the appeal judges didn’t take one single minute off his sentence. I thought it was very fitting – ‘now he’s going to serve these 14 years’ – and then the other complaints came in and he got another four years.
“He showed no remorse and it was tough listening to him at the commission insisting it was consensual and giggling away. He never changed. He was a man who believed he had done no wrong.”
Clancy told Newstalk’s Claire Byrne Show: “He did what he did and he’s just going to have to face the music when he meets his maker.”
