“The only way this can happen now is through the courts.”
Today’s Irish News carries the front-page story of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams’ statement last night on the issuing of an arrest warrant for his younger brother Liam, who is in his 50s, in relation to serious allegations of child sex abuse. According to the Irish News report, Liam Adams had failed to appear at a pre-arranged preliminary inquiry at a Belfast court. Other reports, including the BBC, state that the arrest warrant was issued last year. Liam Adams’ house in Andersonstown is reportedly up for sale and “sources” told the Irish News that he had fled across the border several weeks ago. From the Irish News report
The investigation is said to be a protracted one and involves allegations dating back a number of years. The alleged victim and Gerry Adams have made statements to police in connection with the investigation. Gardai have been contacted and it is understood that Liam Adams may have fled to the Republic.
Updated below the fold. Further Update UTV Insight Special available online.
The iol report adds
The 61-year-old republican leader has apparently urged his younger brother to hand himself in and has made clear the alleged victim – a woman now in her 30s – must get justice.
The West Belfast MP made a statement to police in which he expressed support for her.
The allegations are believed to date back more than 20 years, and Liam Adams, who had been living in west Belfast, has been questioned on a number of occasions by detectives.
The arrest warrant was issued last year when he failed to appear in court for a preliminary inquiry.
And from the Irish News
In a statement last night the Sinn Féin president said the victim “must get justice”.
The West Belfast MP, who has been aware of the allegations for some time said: “Since the first day I spoke to [her] about the abuse she suffered I believed her.
“She must get justice.
“The only way this can happen now is through the courts. I have made a statement to the PSNI in support of [her].”
Update details from the RTÉ report
The story came to light after the woman at the centre of the abuse allegations waved her anonymity in order to tell her story.
She is making public allegations that over a period of at least eight years, beginning in the late 1970s, she was abused by her father. She will feature in a special UTV programme at 8pm tonight.
She claims she can remember the alleged offences, including rape, from the time she was four.
In November of last year, 30 years after some of the alleged abuses and following a PSNI investigation, Liam Adams was to face 23 court charges – but he went missing.
From the UTV report
Eventually, Aine wrote her mother a letter telling her about the abuse. After informing social services and the police, she told her uncle, one of the most recognisable republicans in Northern Ireland, Gerry Adams.
The Sinn Fein president told UTV he believed her story from the beginning.
“Aine was about fourteen at the time, she was a wee kid, but she was always a very good wee girl and always you know, I just couldn’t imagine a child like her making up such a serious allegation.
“Although I didn’t have the awful details of the wrong that was done to her, I think it was doubly done by Liam refusing, called her a liar, and denying emphatically that he had done any wrong.”
And
Mr Adams attempted to make his brother answer for his alleged crimes, by trying to set up a meeting between Aine and her father so she could put the accusations to him directly.
“I tried to create a circumstance where Liam would come forward and do precisely what his daughter wanted.
“On the two occasions we had an arrangement where he was prepared to come along and do what Aine had requested and on two occasions at the very last minute that broke down.
“Now I mean I was disappointed but Aine was even more disappointed understandably.”
Aine said she attended the “rushed” meetings with her uncle on her own, but said the tone changed as Mr Adams started to defend his brother.
“I got my eyes opened when I was going to the meetings.
“It was turning into Liam was the victim.”
Mr Adams has refuted the allegation, saying “any suggestion that in some way the perpetrator was on a level par with the victim is mistaken, as that was never and is not my position.”
Aine has since stopped contact with the West Belfast MP, after writing him a final letter.
She believes she was let down by her uncle.
“I ended up saying look do you know what it is, you have failed me again, when twenty years later I’ve asked you to do one thing.”, she said.
Mick,
I just love it when boys call me Fab
But seriously. Your above reply seems symptomatic of the difficulties we face here in NI when we try to extricate “normal” human problems from their political matrix. (Sorry if that sounds pretentious. It isn’t meant to be; the hour is late and certain words tumble out before others.)
What I mean is that we in these here parts find it hard to evaluate a human tragedy like the Adams case without acknowledging the political baggage we all carry to a certain extent. Yes, you’re spot on: we lose focus.
However my argument still stands (I think). Because of the historical role played by the Catholic Church in Irish affairs, people like myself tend to resort to clichés like “Rome Rule”. Can you blame us when we perceive, rightly or wrongly, that those old sectarian influences endure into our present time?
I call it as I see it. Sorry if it offends Republican sensibilities, but there it is.
Good post, wje.
Many awkward questions to be answered there.
“In thirty years of so-called ‘war’ how many other Aine’s are there?”
I would guess that a lot of nationalists didn’t seek justice via the RUC during the conflict for political reasons but that a lot of them didn’t seek justice via the RUC before that conflict either – mainly because they were second-class citizens to the RUC and to the British state. So you could just as easily ask the question “How many other other Aines are there since the Irish nation was partitioned within a British state?”
I’ve noticed a few unionists declare that the Irish state’s de facto complicity in the Catholic Church’s cover-up of its clerics who abused children is proof that Home Rule equals Rome Rule and therefore validates their decision to veto the right to national self-determination of members of the Irish nation in six counties of Ireland. That’s strange logic, since it implies that they asserted by the threat of force the right to national self-determination of members of the British nation in those six counties of Ireland in order to protect the children of the members of the Irish nation in that region from sexual abuse. That was very noble of them I suppose. But if that was so, why then did they support the British state’s cover-up of the sexual abuse of children of the members of the Irish nation in that region during the Kincora affair? Indeed, is there any evidence at all to suggest that clerics of the Catholic Church in those six counties were less likely to get away with the sexual abuse of childern of the members of the Irish nation than they were in the other 26 counties, and that the British state was therefore more protective of Catholic children than the Irish state? I suspect not. I suspect that unionists would not, contrary to their assertion, make their right to national self-determination dependent on the actions of a Church.
Gerry Adams will come out of this very badly. It is right that people should look at the actions of their public representatives and gauge some insight into the private character of them beyond relying on stage-managed public declarations and policy positions. It is essentially one private citizen’s story but what it reveals about a public figure is relevant to the public. I see a man who would betray both his own brother and his own niece in order to protect is own selfish interests. That is not a man I would ever choose to trust in an elected office to have any influence over my affairs as a citizen of the state (not that I live in NI, incidentally). But then again, a psychopath doesn’t stop being a psychopath just because he gets elected to public office or makes a declaration that he is reformed, so I wouldn’t have trusted the man before this story gave a revealing insight into his character anyway. But given that his despicable actions here cannot be covered by a cloak of republicanism, perhaps others may look a little more closely at the man now than they would have looked at him when he allegedly ordered the ‘dissappearing’ of Jean McConville or the napalm-bombing of dog breeders.
They elected some truly horrible people to public office in NI, but the British and Irish states and their media told them that was a wonderful thing to do.
Gerry A admitted on the UTV programme that when he learned the brother, after his return to Belfast, was working in in a youth setting, he intervened to have Liam removed.
Gerry A must ex-lain why he did not make the same intervention in Dundalk? Are kids from Muirhevnamor deemed less worthy, or lesser to be protected, than those from within Gerry A’s own constituency?
Why was Liam permitted to hold down a position which entailed contact with children and young people in Dundalk but not in Belfast. Did Gerry state to Liam – NIMBY?
Gerry A became President of SF twenty-three years ago in 1986, if I recall correctly. He admits on TV that he knew about Liam’s sordid activities 20 years ago. Gerry A should be asked to explain why, as party president, Gerry did not use his authority to ensure Liam was expelled from SF/the Movm’t 20 years ago.
why was Liam allowed to stay in SF? the mov’t?
Why was Liam allowed to put his name forward as an election candidate 10 years ago in County Louth – at a time when Gerry A acknowledges he knew about these dirty allegations forten years?
As sickening as the clergy!!
That’s a good question, wje, but you need to keep in mind that these are only allegations made by one person and that Liam Adams has not been convicted of charged the offence. His lawyer will claim that the presumption of guilt by the public (and a senior politican declaring him guilty) will make it impossible for him to get a fair trial. It is possible, of course, that Liam Adams is entirely innocent of the accusations. But if Gerry Adams beleives that his brother is a peadophile (as he claims he does), then he should answer your question irrespective of wether or not his brother is actually guilty. But I just don’t think it’s a good idea to ask it until after any legal proceedings are concluded.
Assuming that the all-Ireland Catholic Church behaved the same way in 6 counties as it did in the other 26, why didn’t the British state investigate the Church and offer recompense to its victims in the same way that the Irish state did? We did our part, now you do your part. Does the British state intend to shirk its responsibilities to the victims indefinately? Does British Rule equal Rome Rule?
Typo: “…Liam Adams has not been convicted of
chargedthe offence.”Alias,
I am afraid there is virtually no chance of a conviction now the story has gone public. And that’s because the adults involved screwed with a child protection system designed to protect the interests of the child in the first place, but also the interests of any adult who is accused of child abuse.
No state, Irish or British can clean up abuse without the co-operation of those in full knowledge of that abuse. Collusion is the word and the very real problem we are seeing here.
Child abuse is a widespread phenomenon even in the most normal societies. I would like to know just how widespread it is. And who else has been covering up child abuse cases because they were politically compromised?
wje,
Now THAT is a political question for Adams because it relates to the cover up, rather than he original story.
wje
As sickening as the clergy!!
I think we need to be clear when we infer that all the clergy is to blame for child sexual abuse.
Just as their is good bacteria and bad bacteria, there are good clergy and bad clergy. There are good Nationalist leaders associated with the good bacteria and bad Nationalist leaders associated with the bad bacteria. You might suggest that the SDLP is the good bacteria too and Sinn Fein is the bad bacteria because of their desire to control and destroy rather than help even their own nieces.
posted by Kathleen Collins
Where are the other political parties on this issue. I waited today to see if the DUP, UUP, SDLP or any party spoke out about this issue. Certainly sinn fein has been silent about their presidents knowledge for over 20 years that the party presidents brother had sexually abused and raped his own daughter…. The presidents judgement to bring the 14 year old rape victim to see her abuser…the rapist father…beggers belief..and makes one…at least me…question the man’s judgement or should I say lack of judgement. Adams should resign—now!
“I am afraid there is virtually no chance of a conviction now the story has gone public.”
Isn’t that a matter for the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland to decide? There is a valid arrest warrant for Liam Adams so the charges have clearly not been dropped.