Survivor of child sex abuse at Belfast children’s home says: ‘The truth needs to come out’
By Mark Watts | 19 July 2015
CAUTION: this video interview is distressing.
Former Kincora boy Richard Kerr says in a powerful interview that child sex abuse at the children’s home was all about political leverage.
Speaking in the video interview with Exaro, Kerr says that paedophilia at Kincora boys’ home in east Belfast, Northern Ireland was used “to gain leverage over others for political reasons during the Troubles.”
The comments will re-ignite claims that British intelligence officials exploited the sexual abuse of children at Kincora for strategic reasons. Kerr says: “Some of us were used to have leverage over others in political systems. People wanted to gain power and rank.”
“The Kincora story, in a nutshell? It is about people in power who tried to use boys like myself to gain leverage over others for political reasons during the Troubles.”
Kerr has previously told Exaro that he was taken as a boy from Kincora to be sexually abused by guests at the Europa hotel. He told how he was one of two boys who were trafficked to the world-famous hotel in central Belfast to be forced to have sex with well-connected guests.
One staff member, Joseph Mains, the warden at Kincora, later arranged a job for him at the Europa as a bellboy when he turned 16 so that men could continue to abuse him, according to Kerr.
And Kerr, who has been talking to Exaro for nearly two years, also told how he was taken to the notorious Elm Guest House in Barnes, south-west London to be abused by a retired judge.
Kerr will appear today in a special report on the ‘Westminster paedophile network’ in one of the world’s leading current-affairs programmes, Australia’s 60 Minutes on Channel 9.
The report will also feature an anonymous interview with a man identified only as “Darren”, who became the third witness to give an account to Exaro of how prominent people carried out child sex abuse at Dolphin Square, the apartment complex where many MPs have their London homes.
Exaro helped 60 Minutes to make the film, such as arranging key interviews.
In a seven-minute interview with Exaro, Kerr also spoke of his hopes for the future over the Kincora episode. “I want the real story of Kincora to be heard. The truth needs to come out, really,” he says.
“That is what we are in the process of doing. The bottom end, I want them to recognise that this cannot happen again. Learn from our past.
“And that we were used for political reasons, or whatever reasons back then, because of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.”
Kerr is one of three former Kincora boys who went to the High Court in Belfast last month to seek a judicial review of the government’s decision to exclude the children’s home in Northern Ireland from the remit of overarching inquiry into child sex abuse in the UK. Judgement on the judicial review is not expected until September at the earliest.
The government had a long history of lies over Kincora, says Kerr. “They lied back then, and they told us to keep quiet. And I am just saying, if anybody has a voice out there, do not stop talking, keep talking.”
Meanwhile, Richard Kerr has finally identified several establishment figures who helped to cover up a paedophile network of powerful people linked to Kincora. He also identifies three men who sexually abused him.
Interviewer: Mark Watts
Camera and lighting: Peter Proniewicz-Brooks
Editing: Noah Angell
Production: Fiona O’Cleirigh and Alex Varley-Winter
Additional research by Matthew Gilley.
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