Victims’ suffering will continue as sex abuser looks to his freedom

SANTA Claus came early to James Kelly in a big way. Otherwise known as Brother Ambrose, he is a convicted paedophile who should have died ignominiously in jail some time in the future, a demise appropriate for a man who wrecked so many young lives through his perverted sexual deviance.

Instead, the man who wreaked a reign of sexual terror on boys as young as eight years, while they were in his care, could be on the outside before Christmas.

It won’t be such a good Christmas for his victims, but then it’s unlikely that any of them have been good for the young boys who had their innocence violated, never mind a belief in Santa Claus.

This seasonal cheer is brought to him courtesy of the Court of Criminal Appeal. Kelly - it would be insulting to other decent people in religion to refer to him as “brother” - has been treated by various courts with a measure of compassion which belies the evil he inflicted on so many.

Three years ago he made history when he was sentenced to 36 years in prison, which was the longest sentence ever handed down for a crime, other than capital murder.

He was handed that for the sexual abuse of boys as young as eight in the Lota Residential Home for disadvantaged and mentally handicapped children in Cork during the Fifties and Sixties.

Popular opinion held at the time that in this case justice was served, and while he would never live long enough to complete it, at least it reflected the horrific nature of his offences.

But popular opinion was shortly to be confounded.

Kelly was just 18 months behind bars when he appealed the sentence, and there followed an absolutely extraordinary decision by the court. He was granted early release providing his order, the Brothers of Charity, could find a home for him abroad.

It was the old, well-tried and tested Irish solution: export the problem.

Needless to say, there was public outrage at a decision which flew in the face of natural justice and which had the effect of telling his victims that the perpetrator was more deserving of understanding than they.

But this problem was not exportable, despite efforts by the order to banish him to Britain and Belgium. Wherever they tried to dump this criminal embarrassment in religious houses in those countries, they found that the standards were obviously higher than they are here. Doors remained shut against him, and in any case, Belgium has enough of its own paedophiles.

To even further underline the ill-judged move to release him, Kelly was served with a further 77 summons relating to sexual assaults on children in Cork and Galway.

For those offences he was sentenced at Cork Circuit Criminal Court last March to five years in prison, which most people would consider to have been totally inadequate.

Although inadequate, the serial paedophile was beaming, because four years of the term were suspended. Why? Because Kelly is of advanced age and in poor health. In this case, the quality of mercy was strained to breaking point.

Then, possibly with an appreciation of how the public felt about the kid glove treatment this man has consistently received in our courts, the Director of Public Prosecutions intervened.

He appealed the leniency of the sentence. He wanted it increased.

However, he wasn’t quite as appealing to the court as James Kelly. The DPP’s efforts were fruitless: the decision would stand and remain “unduly lenient,” in the words of counsel for the DPP.

Mr. Justice Geoghegan said Kelly had at that stage served at least three years in prison, which the court felt was ample punishment. He went on to add, among other things, that there was little risk Kelly would offend again and that he had faced up to his situation and had shown remorse.

With remission, Kelly can apply to the court in Cork to sanction his release next month.

What odds would you get on the man eating his turkey in The Curragh this Christmas? Very short, if any, I would suggest.

It is inexplicable to lay people, and certainly to Kelly’s victims, how one judge can decide he warranted a sentence of 36 years, and another felt that three years was enough.

This latest decision in Kelly’s favour once again got a reaction of outrage from his victims, understandably. Their feelings were summed up by John Barrett, who represents a group of survivors in Cork.

“It’s like as if we never existed,” he said.

“Did they forget the pain we went through? This man raped us night after night for four and five years.

“I feel I’ve been raped again by the court. They might as well have a struck a knife in me.”

Apparently, the Brothers of Charity are still trying to re-locate Kelly abroad. If, as seems likely, he will depart the Curragh of Kildare before Christmas, there is still the question of getting him transported elsewhere to evade the 36-year sentence.

John Barrett said Lota abuse survivors did not want Kelly to be sent abroad.

“We want him to serve the 36 years and we want him to serve it in Ireland. Here is where he did the crime and here’s where he should do the time,” he said, with an understandable logic.

A survey commissioned by TG4 and conducted by MRBI in the diocese of Galway, found that a majority of people would welcome back Bishop Eamonn Casey.

Apart from that unshattering detail, the survey also found that a majority of adults in the diocese were in favour of Catholic priests being allowed to marry and a similar number favoured women being admitted to the priesthood.

That finding probably reflects the opinion of the majority of people in this country, but unfortunately Rome is not heading in that direction, and is unlikely to for a long time.

The Church law on celibacy has been coming in for criticism more and more over the years, many people believing that it should be a matter of choice, rather than compulsion, for those who enter the religious life.

At the moment, the Vatican is drafting new guidelines for accepting candidates for the priesthood that will address the question of whether gays should be barred.

I’m not sure they are addressing the right question, because it would seem to imply that barring gay people from the religious life would somehow contribute to eliminating the awful problem of paedophilia.

In other words, the Vatican would appear to equate being gay with being a paedophile, which is nonsense.

Rome is now panicking into that approach in the wake of the clerical sex abuse scandals in America, despite the fact that it threw out proposals which the Conference of American Bishops produced.

A study commissioned by the Catholic Church in this country revealed, among other things, that 77% of the 1,000 people surveyed were critical of the Church’s handling of clerical child sex abuse.

The Church can go on commissioning studies and surveys ’til resurrection day, but a lot more good would come about if the hierarchy actually did something about it; something which would prove to people that they are sincere in facing up to the problem of clerical child sex abuse.

On the other hand, a survey - a comprehensive one - on what people think of the sentencing policy, or lack of one, might give some of our judges a wake-up call.