Court gives go-ahead for deportation of Offaly native
A former priest from Offaly said to be at the centre of one of the largest clerical sex abuse settlements ever is expected to be charged with a raft of offences after a British court gave the go-ahead for his deportation.
A court last week ordered that Peter Kennedy, 72, a native of Bloomhill on the Offaly side of Ballinahown, be sent back to Ireland - less than two weeks after he had been deported to England from Brazil where he had been living for the last eight years.
He could face 55 separate indecent assault charges on 18 different young males between 1968 and 1984.
Back in 2003, he was exposed as the cleric at the centre of one of the highest compensation payouts of the time after a man was paid €325,000 in a High Court settlement with the Kiltegan Fathers, also known as the St Patrick's Missionary Society, based in Co Wicklow.
He had been living in Brazil since 2003 where he worked as an English teacher but was deported from there on December 26. He was later arrested by officers from London Metropolitan Police Extradition Unit in Heathrow Airport on foot of a European arrest warrant on behalf of the Irish government.
At Westminster Magistrates' Court last Thursday, Judge Quentin Purdy gave the go-ahead for his deportation back to Ireland, where he is expected to face a series of charges.
Adam Harbinson, counsel for the Irish authorities, objected to bail being given to Kennedy as he had left Britain for Brazil previously and has no settled address here.
Defence counsel Joanna French said her client is 72, has the means to put himself up in a hotel for a few weeks if necessary. She said he did not have anywhere else to go.
Judge Purdy said that due to the seriousness of the charges and his lack of ties in Britain, he was refusing bail. Kennedy was removed from ministry by St Patrick's Missionary Society in 1986 and was formally laicised by the Vatican in 2003.
After he moved to Brazil, he worked as an English teacher.
(courtesy The Irish Post)
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