'We got him into jail, and those lads have kept him there': Bill Kenneally whistle blower happy to be out of shadows
Pictured on Tramore Beach, Tramore, Co. Waterford is Jason Clancy. Photograph: Patrick Browne
The Waterford man who took the first step towards halting years of abuse perpetrated by notorious paedophile Bill Kenneally says he is “very pleased” with the four and half year sentence handed down to the Waterford offender in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court this week.
Jason Clancy triggered Kenneally’s eventual downfall when, in December 2012, he and a fellow victim reported the abuse inflicted on them as teenagers by the former basketball coach over a four-year period in the 1980s.
Their evidence, along with that of eight other victims, saw Kenneally sent down for 14 years and two months in 2016 — 17 months per victim.
This week, evidence from five further complainants saw their tormentor given a consecutive sentence that, allowing for remission, should see the 72-year-old offender incarcerated at least until 2030. He will then be 80 years old.
“We got him into jail — and those lads have kept him there,” Mr Clancy said. “It amounts to the biggest sentence ever imposed on a paedophile in this country. I’m happy with that and I hope the other victims are also.”
Now 52 and a self-employed financial adviser, Mr Clancy lives in the Tramore region with his wife and four children.
Though he had known him by sight previously, his encounters with Kenneally stretched from October 1984 to summer 1988, through Sunday morning soccer games in Waterford city’s Grange Park area, close to where they both lived.
Kenneally, who was given to referencing his prominent political ties with Fianna Fáil, would acquaint himself with his victim’s movements. Then, he would seek him out and find him in secluded locations, “in forests throughout the south-east, at Kenneally’s home and in various lay-bys across the region”.
Mr Clancy speaks of being tied up, blindfolded, handcuffed and hung from a ceiling during the years of abuse he suffered at Kenneally's hands. “He did things to me you wouldn’t do to a farm animal”, he said.
He describes how “paedophiles live half in the shadows and half in the open".
"So now the child too is living half in the shadows. I had to lie to everybody around me and I was terrified”.
Because the defendant withheld his eventual guilty plea for several days during this week’s trial, the witnesses were compelled to deliver similarly detailed evidence of the horrific abuse they suffered in court.
In that context and aligned with his own experiences, Mr Clancy’s appraisal of the situation is, perhaps, surprising.
“I don’t hate him”, he says. “I hate what he did. But I pity him, because he is a sick man.
"It is my personal view that some people, including those close to him, turned a blind eye instead of trying to get him help. I think those people are worse”.
Immersed in shame and fear, the businessman buried his trauma until, post-2013, he sought counselling. It has brought him “peace with the past”. He has “probably forgiven him” he said. However, he will never forgive those who knowingly protected him.
Mr Clancy was prompted to report his abuse and his abuser at Waterford’s Ballybrick Garda Station after discovering online that Kenneally had resumed an interest in basketball coaching, with the opportunity for easy access to children.
“I broke down and cried”, he recalled. “As a father of four children myself, I knew I had to do whatever I could to stop him. The day had come”.
Reports have since emerged that gardaí had been advised of Kenneally’s activities back in the late 1980s but, because there was no official statement, had not arrested him.
Following Kenneally’s conviction in 2016, Mr Clancy and five co-complainants campaigned successfully for a commission of investigation into the extent of State agencies’ awareness of Kenneally’s deviance and their responses to any such alert.
The group of six have also initiated a civil action against the State, which is on hold, pending the outcome of the commission’s proceedings.
The commission began sitting in November 2019 under retired Circuit Court Judge Mr Justice Barry Hickson, who stepped down in June 2021 and who has been succeeded by former Criminal Court head Mr Justice Michael White.
After early dissatisfaction with the commission’s performance, Mr Clancy is now satisfied it is “progressing well and efficiently”.
His hope for the inquiry is that it will provoke institutional and cultural reform.
Conscious that there are “many more victims” of Bill Kenneally alone, he hopes “any child who has been abused should be able to march into a Garda station or into any place of authority, tell their story and have it dealt with immediately, regardless of who the alleged perpetrator is.
“At this moment in time that is not the case. I want to see more transparency and honesty from people in authority”.
Jason Clancy files a complaint at Ballybrick Garda Station, Waterford city, of being abused as a teenager by Bill Kenneally during a period between 1984 to 1988.
Gardaí interview Kenneally and searched his house.
Kenneally pleads guilty to 10 sample charges of sexually abusing 10 teenage boys in the Waterford area between 1984 and 1987. Waterford Circuit Criminal Court judge Eugene O’Kelly sentences him to 14 years and two months imprisonment — 17 months per charge.
During the case it emerges two senior gardaí in Waterford were informed in 1987 that Kenneally had abused another boy, but the matter had not been properly investigated after no formal complaint was made.
Kenneally’s efforts to have the sentence reduced are dismissed by the Court of Appeal March 2018: Kenneally fails to gain a judicial review regarding an impending case by three victims on the basis of time lapse and that he had presented himself to a Garda station back in 1987.
Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan signs off on a Commission of Investigation into complaints of sexual abuse by Kenneally, including the roles and responses of State agencies.
The commission starts collecting evidence under Mr Justice Barry Hickson.
Charges are filed pertaining to 171 acts of sexual abuse against three boys, between 1979 and 1990. Two more victims subsequently came forward to bring the total to 266 charges.
The Commission begins sitting.
Mr Justice Hickson steps down and is replaced by Mr Justice Michael White.
Kenneally, facing 266 counts of indecently and sexually assaulting five boys in locations in Waterford, Cork and Kilkenny between 1978 and 1993, changes plea to guilty on sixth day to 13 sample charges. He receives a four and a half year sentence consecutive to the 14 years already being served.
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