Sex Abuse Priest Extradited to Face 34 Charges Here

By Maeve Sheehan and Shane Hickey
Irish Independent
May 5, 2013

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/sex-abuse-priest-extradited-to-face-34-charges-here-29242962.html

He was known for decades as the foul-mouthed, flashy priest whose abusive friendships with vulnerable children forced him out of the church.

But a subdued Bill Carney appeared before the London court that last Friday ordered his extradition to Ireland to face 34 charges of indecent assault on eight males and two females.

Now 73 and still imposing at 6ft 4in, a green jumper covered his large gut. He stared around the courtroom, only speaking to confirm his name and age. His solicitor mentioned his heart condition and listed his many medications. Afterwards, he was sent back to Holloway prison, where he remains this weekend.

When his shocking past as child abuser was first exposed by the Commission of Investigation into clerical abuse in 2009, Carney had reinvented himself as a respectable married man and owner of a guest house in the Scottish golfing town of St Andrews, where he passed his days perfecting his swing. Since then, his marriage has collapsed but he continued to live freely in the UK, pursued occasionally by the media and blaming his past on his drinking.

On April 25, Carney was arrested in the leafy village of Bidford in Warrickshire, where he has been living in recent months.

The latest alleged offences occurred during the late Seventies and Eighties when Bill Carney was at his most "crude and loutish" as a priest in various Dublin parishes. One former resident of a children's home in south Dublin recalled how, as a young seminarian at Clonliffe College, Bill Carney, inveigled his way in as chaplain, delighting the nuns and making himself "the children's favourite".

John, who asked for his real name to be withheld, said: "He drove flash cars, used colourful language, joked and laughed and in a sense was not what we perceived as being a normal stern priest. Bill Carney also arranged various trips away for the children and the one thing that always stuck in my mind was him swimming naked on various trips."

Carney's frequent sidekick on these visits was his friend and fellow chaplain, Fr Frank McCarthy, who was later convicted of child abuse. The Murphy Report later suggested that both priests acted "in concert" to abuse children. Carney himself had pleaded guilty in 1983 to two counts of indecent assault in a case that was not widely reported. Even more remarkably, he was given another parish.

Soon after this, John, who was by then in his early 20s and in need of a home, was offered a room in Carney's parish house in Crumlin.

"I had no experience of Bill Carney outside of the children's home and I knew nothing about him beyond my experiences there, which at the time appeared on the surface quite innocent. Bill Carney was at this stage a recovering alcoholic and spent most of his free time playing golf," said John.

"My first suspicions were raised at the constant presence of a young boy who acted as Carney's full-time caddie. Bill Carney brought me to various parish houses where he had befriended numerous families, all of whom had fathers who had left or separated from the family..."

There was another side to him too. "Bill was very domineering, obnoxious and rude. On many occasions he would slam the door on parishioners seeking help... He seemed to have a close inner circle and anyone beyond that circle was treated with complete contempt."

John put Carney's mood swings down to his recovery from alcohol abuse. "At no time during my time at this house did I witness anything untoward with any child, although I was always struck by the fact there was always children there. I was instructed not to be at the house at certain times and can only wonder now why this was the case," he said.

"I am sickened at what may have been occurring under my nose. I was in my early 20s at that time and while I was not vulnerable, I had no family and to a certain extent depended on Bill Carney's apparent kindness for a roof over my head and for this reason put up with his constant mood swings and erratic behaviour. Foolishly, I saw his apparent kindness to children as his only redeeming quality," he said.

John eventually moved out after he surprised the priest at home one day, naked under his dressing gown, with a young woman. Six of Carney's victims were paid compensation by the church authorities. Judge Yvonne Murphy's report concluded that he may have abused many more.

"It just beggar's belief... where Carney's exposure to children began – and that was at State-run children's homes," said John.