Paedo priest who was one of Ireland’s worst sex abusers found dead in cell

By Eamon Dillon
Sunday World
September 6, 2015

https://www.sundayworld.com/news/paedo-priest-who-was-one-of-ireland-s-worst-sex-abusers-found-dead

Bill Carney

Sick paedophile Bill Carney has escaped justice ahead of his trial after his sudden death yesterday morning at the Midlands jail.

Known to have had heart trouble, the 73-year-old was rushed to hospital after his cellmate alerted prison staff.

However, he was declared dead on arrival at the nearby Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise.

The former cleric was regarded as one of the most prolific paedophiles and was named in the 2009 Murphy Report.

It also highlighted how church officials and gardai failed to act, allowing him to rape and abuse even more young victims.

The scandal saw Carney being extradited back to Ireland to face dozens of charges from the U.K., where he had been living freely for more than 10 years.

The Murphy report into the cover-up by the Catholic Church and Irish state of clerical sex abuse was published in November 2009.

It described Carney as “a serial sexual abuser of children, male and female”, saying that there had been complaints and suspicions “in respect of 32 named individuals” and that “there is evidence he abused many more children”.

One man who had been one of Carney’s altar servers told a BBC documentary: “I heard a groan and I saw in the bedroom, a boy, a little older than me, naked between the sheets.

“This boy sat up, stared groggily at me, and fell back into the bed. I was terrified and ran out. As a child I couldn’t understand why he was there. Now I know.”

Carney took kids swimming during the 1970s and ’80s as part of a scout troop. He used his state of the art video player to lure children to his house to watch movies.

One garda did investigate complaints and got them into court. However, the press were kept away as Carney pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault and got probation.

Six families were paid compo and Carney was soon back at work.

He later left the priesthood and went to live in the U.K. where he got married, blaming his past actions on his alcoholism.

For a while he ran a guesthouse in the famous Scottish town of St Andrew’s, but moved when his marriage collapsed.

In 2013 he was extradited back to Ireland to face 34 charges of indecent assault on eight males and two females.

In 1992, Carney was defrocked after church authorities convicted him under canon law of child sex abuse.

A psychiatric assessment of Carney described him as having a “psychopathic personality disorder”. The assessment stated that his “refusal to acknowledge his paedophilia means the prognosis for a cure is bleak”.

In 2011, in response to an article about him, Carney claimed he was no danger to children.

“I know in my heart what kind of person I am today and I know that I do not pose any threat of danger to any child, 30 years surely must mean and say something,” he wrote.