Convicted serial sex abuser Bill Kenneally has died in hospital aged 75.
His death comes just over a week after the publication of a report on the response by State agencies to his abuse of a boy in Waterford in the 1980s.
The former sports coach was 10 years into an 18½-year sentence for the sexual assault of 15 teenagers in Waterford in the 1970s and 1980s and had been suffering ill health in recent weeks.
He had been serving his sentence in the Midlands Prison, where he died at 3.30am on Thursday. Earlier this year, he had part of his leg amputated and had been receiving palliative care for a number of weeks.
A commission of investigation into complaints against Kenneally found a serious dereliction of duty by senior Garda officers when they learned he sexually abused a boy in 1987.
Judge Michael White, who chaired the South East Commission of Investigation , examined the response by the Garda and the South Eastern Health Board to a report in 1987 that Kenneally – a member of a prominent Fianna Fáil political family in Waterford – was abusing pubescent boys.
White also criticised the health board for failing to follow through on complaints that could have led to Kenneally being caught much sooner.
[ Who was Bill Kenneally? The basketball coach whose crimes had ‘lifelong impact on victims’ Opens in new window ]
In his report, White noted: “There is no evidence of widespread collusion that would indicate any finding by the commission of State collusion and/or conspiracy, which is not to underestimate in any way the seriousness of the dereliction of duty in the original investigation in 1987/1988.”
An accountant, Kenneally, who lived at Laragh, Summerville Avenue in Waterford city, was a serial abuse of pubescent boys whom he befriended through basketball, casual games of soccer, a local tennis club in Waterford in the 1970s and 1980s.
White described him as a risk to young boys in Waterford in the 1970s and 1980s.
“Bill Kenneally was a predatory sexual abuser operating in Waterford city and its environs. He had an intense sexual attraction to pubescent boys in early adolescence described as hebephilia rather than paedophilia,” observed White of Kenneally, who testified before the commission in March 2024.
Kenneally was jailed for 14 years and two months at Waterford Circuit Criminal Court on February 19th, 2016 for the indecent assault of 10 boys. He was jailed for a further four years and six months on May 22nd, 2023, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for the indecent assault of five other boys.
[ State apology to be offered to Bill Kenneally victims after report detailing ‘abhorrent crimes’ Opens in new window ]
White said Kenneally’s crimes had “a lifelong impact on the victims and their families”.
Noting that Kenneally was not brought to justice until a formal complaint was made by one of his victims, Jason Clancy, in December 2012, White said “his crimes were cruel and exploitative. He was intelligent and manipulative and an expert at grooming children by developing trust and affection.”
But White noted Kenneally also used fear to exploit his victims. “He photographed many of the boys with a Polaroid camera which could instantly develop photos of them in compromising positions. He retained possession of these photos ... [in an] effective blackmail of the boys to preserve silence.
“He regularly used restraints including handcuffs and builder’s twine. He used alcohol, money and gifts in grooming and in the commission of offences. Many of these boys had never consumed alcohol before being introduced to it by Bill Kenneally.”
The commission heard evidence from the senior investigative officer on the case between 2012 and 2018, Chief Supt Anthony Pettit, that gardaí had taken statements from 23 men, alleging that they had been sexually abused as minors by Kenneally.
Pettit said two other men made statements alleging activity that could be described as grooming while gardaí identified another 13 men who had socialised with Kenneally as minors. All 13 declined to make statements, but gardaí believed there was prima facie evidence he had abused four others.
White noted that from an analysis of complaints made to gardaí from 2012 onwards, Kenneally’s targeting of boys for abuse was intense during the period from 1978 to 1987, with some of the activity clearly observable.
This included Kenneally behaving inappropriately in changing rooms and showers when boys he was coaching in basketball were showering and changing, while he also used to take young boys to fast-food restaurants and for spins in his car.
He regularly provided alcohol for youths to drink and he kept alcohol in the boot of his car while he regularly invited boys to his own home when his parents were aware and played pornographic tapes for them and gave them alcohol.
Kenneally was a member of the influential Kenneally political dynasty in Waterford - his grandfather William Kenneally was a Fianna Fáil TD for Waterford from 1952 until 1957 while…
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