BILL Carney, the ex-priest exposed as a notorious paedophile, is living out of a bed and breakfast since his wife divorced him.
The
former priest has been moving between rented rooms after the
proceedings concluded late last year.
The couple ran a bed and breakfast
in Scotland before he was named as a serial child abuser in the Murphy
report.
He would have been entitled to up to half the proceeds of
the business, which was put on the market for more than £600,000
(€712,000) in 2009 but sold for significantly less.
News of the
divorce will interest the many victims of the former cleric, who was
forced out of the priesthood for abusing children.
Carney, who
lives in the UK, faces a rash of civil actions since the Murphy report
on clerical sex abuse named him as a serial offender suspected of
abusing up to 32 children.
The priest, described as foul-mouthed
and loutish, is believed to have been staying in a bed and breakfast in
Staffordshire, England, since his divorce last September.
Gardai
are investigating a number of complaints made by his victims and are in
contact with the authorities but Carney has not been questioned by
police.
Contacted by the Sunday Independent this weekend, Paul Clayton,
whose mother divorced Carney in September, says that his understanding
is that the ex-priest is still claiming he is innocent.
"He is
telling people that he has done nothing wrong. And people are believing
him because, he says, if he had done something wrong, the authorities
would have done something about it by now. He has told me that he has
made himself available for questioning and nobody is interested."
Carney
pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting two altar boys in 1983.
Afterwards, he was moved from parish to parish for a decade before he
finally left the priesthood with a £30,000 pay-out from the church.
While still at large in Dublin, he took young boys caddying at the elite
Royal Dublin Golf Club, where he won a player of the year award.
He
was expelled from the club and news of his conviction emerged in the
mid-1990s and he left for Gloucestershire where he met his wife, married
and opened a bed and breakfast in St Andrew's, a university and golfing
town in Scotland.
The Murphy report revealed him to be a serial abuser
who acted in concert with other paedophile priests.
Carney was in Spain
with his wife when the report was published over a year ago.
His wife
started divorce proceedings against him, which concluded late last year.
Judge Yvonne Murphy's Commission of Investigation into the
Dublin archdiocese said Carney was the subject of 32 complaints and
there was evidence that he abused many more children.
Six victims were paid compensation by church authorities.
The
Murphy report also noted that Carney was linked with three other
paedophile priests, including Fr Tony Walsh, who was jailed in December
for child sexual abuse.
The others included Fr Francis McCarthy,
with whom Carney took children on holidays, and Fr Patrick Maguire, who
sometimes accompanied Carney when he took children swimming.
Maguire and McCarthy later confessed to abusing children and were both convicted.
The
report by Judge Murphy found "no direct evidence" of a paedophile ring"
but noted "worrying connections" between a number of priests.