Adams’s sex abuse account challenged

SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams’s account of how he dealt with child sex abuse allegations involving his brother has been directly contradicted by the alleged abuse victim.

In an interview in the Sunday Tribune, alleged abuse victim Áine Tyrell, the niece of Gerry Adams, said she repeatedly requested that her father, Liam, 54, was not allowed to work with children but was told by the Sinn Féin leader – “that was Liam’s way of trying to make up to the community for what he had done” to her.

Liam Adams worked with youth groups in republican areas of Dundalk and Belfast from the mid-1990s to 2006.

Tyrell has also denied that Gerry Adams had been curtailed from informing party colleagues of the allegations surrounding Liam due to the wish to protect her right to privacy, saying that, in order to keep Liam away from other children, she “would have waived my anonymity without hesitation”.

Responding to the allegations, Adams accused the Sunday Tribune of a “deliberate smear campaign” based on “untrue and offensive” claims.

He stated that he was “disappointed that Áine appears to believe that I did not have her best interests at heart.” Adding that he had “never lied nor tried to deceive anyone about the situation concerning” Liam Adams in what was “a deeply difficult family matter.”

The deepening personal crisis for Adams comes as Taoiseach Brain Cowen and Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced they would hold talks today in an attempt to aid Northern Ireland’s political leaders to reach agreement on the devolution of policing and justice powers.

The current talks impasse is believed to centre on DUP and Sinn Féin disagreement over mechanisms to decide on the routes of contentious loyalist parades.

Mr Adams has warned that if agreement on the hand-over of policing and justice powers cannot be reached, then the Northern Ireland assembly and executive can no longer continue.

In the weekend interview, Áine Tyrell said she was also dismayed with the PSNI’s handling of the abuse allegations.

“Given the length of time involved in bringing Liam to justice, I heavily suspect political involvement in the case.”

Liam Adams is currently believed to be in the Republic awaiting the court proceedings which will follow the PSNI lodging aEuropean arrest warrant with Gardaí concerning more than 20 charges of abuse related to allegations he raped his own daughter from the age of four.

It was also revealed that the lack of progress in prosecuting Liam Adams, since police and social services became aware of his alleged crimes in 1987 led to Ms Tyrell lodging formal complaints with the North’s rights commissioner, Monica McWilliams, and the police ombudsman.

Ms Tyrell also called upon Sinn Féin politicians to stop referring to her when defending Adams from allegations of improper conduct relating to the case.

Specifically naming Sinn Féin vice-president Mary Lou McDonald and other Sinn Féin politicians, Ms Tyrell said: “I want them to stop using my name.”