Kincora won’t go away

By the Phoenix

The decades-old snake pit that is the former Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast, where children were abused in blackmail tactics against unionist politicians and loyalists by British spooks, is about to resurface.

Two former residents are suing various NI officials for the sex abuse they suffered while in care in the 1970s. They have just made an application to the High Court in Belfast to have the state’s defence struck out for obstructing the progress of the action. It commenced in 2016. Another litigant, Clint Massey, has since died.

Richard Kerr, one of the litigants, was trafficked across the UK and Europe while he was a resident at Kincora. His abuse commenced even earlier – at Williamson House, when he was about eight years old. Photographs of him in London; Thun, Switzerland; and Venice have been available for inspection for decades.

He was taken to Venice where he was abused by the late Roy Cohn, chief counsel to senator Joe McCarthy during the 1950 communist witch-hunts in the US. Later, he became Donald Trump’s favourite lawyer.

None of the five inquiries that took place between 1980 and 2022 have bothered with Kerr’s portfolio of pictures.

Pornographic pictures of Kerr, taken in England while he was still a resident of Kincora and published in a Dutch paedophile magazine, have also been ignored.

Gary Hoy, another litigant, was trafficked around Belfast to abusers who included worshipful brothers of the Orange Order.

All of the inquiries have concluded that the abuse was limited to three Kincora staff members and occurred at the home. Presumably, the investigators could have discerned the difference between the splendour of Venice and the mundanity of Belfast had they looked at Kerr’s photos and presumably would also have been capable of reading the date on the cover of the dirty Dutch mag and matched it with Kerr’s residency at Kincora.

The real culprits behind Kincora’s vice ring were British spooks, who used the boys to entrap unionist politicians and paramilitaries who liked to have sex with children.

Extraordinarily, the resolution to the Kincora saga lies in the palm of the Irish government. An Garda Síochána has retained the security logs from Classiebawn, the holiday home of Lord Mountbatten, a notorious abuser. It has been asked to release them by authors David Burke and Andrew Lownie, who believe they will confirm that Joe Mains, the warden of Kincora, trafficked boys there in August 1977 for the gratification of Mountbatten.

Gardaí have admitted the security logs exist but refuse to release them as they are part of an open investigation into the murder of Mountbatten. Yet, he was not killed until 1979 – two years later. The assassination was carried out by the Provos. Loyalist terror groups had nothing to do with it. The staff at Kincora were associated with loyalist terror groups, not the Provos.

Last January, gardaí told the authors that the records “are considered confidential and will not be disclosed to third parties in the absence of a court order directing such disclosure”.

Urgent Appeal