Ex-garda says he 'would probably have known' if case was launched after Bill Kenneally admissions

 Bill 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.

A retired Garda chief superintendent has admitted that had an investigation actually been carried out into admissions of child sexual abuse by convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally in the 1980s he “would probably have known about it”.

Michael McGarry told the commission of investigation into how cases of child sexual abuse perpetrated by Mr Kenneally in the 1970s and 1980s were handled by state bodies that he had served as the sergeant in charge at Waterford Garda Station between 1986 and 1989.

In December 1987, Mr Kenneally attended that Garda station for an informal interview with former chief superintendent Sean Cashman and Inspector PJ Hayes during which he acknowledged that he had sexually abused at least six boys.

Mr McGarry, who said he had no knowledge of Mr Kenneally prior to his crimes coming to the nation’s attention in 2013, was asked by senior counsel for the commission, Patrick McCann, if the fact he had not heard about Mr Kenneally’s interview with the two Garda officers would suggest that no investigation had taken place.

He replied: “I don’t know. If there was an investigation I would probably have known about it.”

He acknowledged that the details of most investigations at Waterford Garda Station at the time would have come to his desk, but said that sometimes allegations of crime would have been elevated to the detectives’ division within the station.

Asked if he was “surprised” that he had not been aware of Mr Kenneally’s interview he replied “not necessarily”.

He said that should someone have presented to the station seeking to speak to a detective informally at the time then he “wouldn’t be aware of that”. 

“People might want to speak in confidence and that would be their prerogative,” he said.

Caution statement

Mr McGarry said that standard procedure for someone admitting to a crime at a Garda station in 1987 would be: “You would take a caution statement in relation to the circumstances, and then you would investigate the veracity of those statements.”

He said if someone had wished to make an admission of guilt to him at the time, he'd "have a chat” and if they were willing to volunteer guilt he would proceed to take a caution statement.

Asked further if a caution statement is how such a situation should be dealt with, Mr McGarry replied “of course”.

Mr Kenneally, in two days of testimony last March, previously informed the commission that he had not heard from the gardaí from the point of his interview at the station in December 1987 until his arrest for his crimes 25 years later in 2013.

With regard to a Kenneally victim who previously claimed to have approached gardaí two years earlier in June 1985, only to be informed that he would have to return with an adult accompanying him, Mr McGarry said he would have expected that interaction to have been “documented”, or for the “injured party to have been directed to a member of the detective branch”, or that the matter be escalated to the sergeant in charge.

He said there was no standard protocol for those actions in 1987, but that it would have been standard practice that anybody who would come for attention in the Garda station would "receive appropriate attention”.

Mr McGarry’s evidence was heard on the penultimate public hearing of the commission, which is expecting to hear from Mr Kenneally himself again in a fortnight’s time.

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