Confusion surrounds father of Kenneally victim's attempt to 'clarify' evidence

The witness gave two separate versions of confronting senior gardaí, however he could not recall when the alleged meeting took place

Bill Kenneally, a former basketball coach, is currently serving a 19-year sentence for the indecent assault of 12 boys in Waterford between 1979 and 1990.

Confusion surrounds the witness testimony of the father of a victim of convicted child abuser Bill Kenneally, after he moved to “clarify” his own prior evidence about confronting gardaí in relation to the abuse.

Tom Murphy, whose son Barry revealed he had been abused by Kenneally in 2016, on Monday gave two separate versions of confronting senior gardaí to the commission of investigation that is probing how the case was handled. However, he could not recall when the alleged meeting took place.

Mr Murphy, a car salesman based in Waterford city, had told the commission in January that he had met with Garda Superintendent Sean Cashman and his colleague Inspector PJ Hayes. He said he had been told by the former that Kenneally had left a Garda station “a chastened boy”, after being brought in for questioning about his abuse of children.

However, confusion remains as to when that meeting took place, and also as to why Mr Murphy sought to meet with the two gardaí in the first place. Mr Murphy has said that he first learned that his own son had been abused by Kenneally in 2016.

Kenneally, a former basketball coach, is currently serving a 19-year sentence for the indecent assault of 15 boys in Waterford between the years 1979 and 1990.

Mr Murphy had previously told the commission that the conversation with Mr Cashman and Mr Hayes had taken place after the news of Kenneally’s abuses became public knowledge in 2013. He believed both men were still active gardaí at the time, but Mr Cashman retired from the force in 1993.

Mr Murphy accepted therefore that the conversation must have taken place between December 1987, when Kenneally was brought into the Garda station, and 1993 when Mr Cashman retired.

Initially on Monday, Mr Murphy said he believed that he had approached the gardaí after his wife took a call from the mother of one of Kenneally’s victims, warning her to be wary of him. His son Barry Murphy previously testified that the conversation took place in the summer of 1987, six months before Kenneally was interviewed by the gardaí.

Scot free

“I’ve agonised on this, as clearly I had my dates wrong the last time,” he said. “I knew Cashman quite well, I went to him as I’d heard of Kenneally and that he had walked away scot free,” he said.

Pushed as to his lack of clarity on matters, Mr Murphy said that, at the time in 1987, he had “spent too much time on my business, and not enough on family issues”.

He then said that he couldn’t 'recall what prompted' him to go to the gardaí. 

He added that he had first heard “gossip” about Kenneally in the early 1990s.

He then said he knew of “two families who had kids allegedly abused by Bill Kenneally”, and that he had known those names before meeting with Mr Cashman. “That very well may be what made me go to Cashman,” he said.

Asked if former Fianna Fáil TD Donie Ormonde had been the person who told him about Kenneally’s abuse of children, he replied: “I very much doubt it."

Mr Ormonde previously told the commission in January that he had no knowledge of Kenneally’s abuse until 2013.