A NOTORIOUS paedophile priest has been caught enjoying a luxury cruise among families with young children.Vile Bill Carney was joined on his Mediterranean jaunt by the wife who disowned him after the Daily Record exposed his sickening crimes.
Carney terrorised children for years in his native Ireland.
An official report said he was suspected of abusing up to 32 named victims, with evidence that there were many more.
He was allowed to remain a priest for years after being convicted of indecent assault. And after he was finally defrocked in 1992, the golf-mad pervert fled to Scotland, married wife Joan and opened a “family friendly” guest house in St Andrews.
Carney shut the B&B and fled again after we unmasked him in 2009, but he remains free and unsupervised despite his horrific history of abuse.
He is not on the sex offenders’ register in the UK.
And last month, he and Joan boarded the P&O cruise ship Ventura for a luxurious voyage to Barcelona, Monaco, Elba, Rome, Naples, Alicante and Gibraltar.
A witness who recognised him on the ship told us: “It was the paedophile priest I had seen in the Record. There was no doubt about it. But here he was without a care in the world – and we were surrounded by families and children. We kept an eye on him.”
Carney normally takes great care to avoid being photographed, but he posed grinning with Joan at his side before enjoying a black tie dinner with Ventura’s captain.
Our source said: “We struck up a conversation with him but he was evasive. He gave a different name for his wife. He seems to spend his life looking over his shoulder. I hope the Record can help bring him to justice.”
P&O describe the Ventura as “very family friendly”, with “fantastic children’s clubs and a play area for under-twos”.
Carney, 62, became a priest in 1974 and used his position to molest dozens of children.
He attacked boys and girls from at least eight children’s homes, took children swimming and on holidays and used them as golf caddies.
An Irish government report into child abuse by priests described Carney as “one of the most serious serial abusers” in the archdiocese of Dublin.
The report’s author, judge Yvonne Murphy, said: “Bill Carney is a serial abuser of children, male and female. The Commission is aware of complaints or suspicions of abuse against him in respect of 32 named individuals. There is evidence that he abused many more children.”
The report said there was evidence Carney “may have acted in concert” with other paedophile priests.
Carney’s only convictions came in 1983, for two counts of indecent assault. He got probation and the archdiocese paid compensation to six victims.
He was not kicked out of the priesthood until 1992 – when the archdiocese paid him £30,000 to go quietly.
The Murphy Report savaged the Catholic Church in Ireland for its handling of Carney. It found that Bishop James Kavanagh had a “soft spot” for the predator and did all he could to protect him and avoid scandal.
Judge Murphy said of the Church:“It was inept, self-serving and for the best part of 10 years displayed no obvious concern for the welfare of children.”
The Irish authorities knew about Carney’s St Andrews guest house but did nothing to warn their counterparts in Scotland – or his wife.
Joan, 71, knew nothing about Carney’s crimes until her sons from a previous marriage warned her after seeing the Record’s 2009 story.
She said later: “I nearly died. I said, ‘Get me out of here. I can’t stay here a minute longer.’”
Carney fled to the Canary Islands, where he spent a year before returning to the UK.
Joan cut all ties with him but they are now a couple again.
They were last known to be living in a village in Gloucestershire.