Breaking news, referendum, childrens referendum, November referendum, child protection, child care, child abuse, sinn fein, Gerry Adams sex crime
Sinn Fein the Party with the ‘Beasts Head’ as its mascot has come out in support of the Referendum on Children’s Rights to be held on the 10th November 2012, watching Gerry Adams hold a sign calling for children’s rights was like watching a mad-dog call for the rights of the lamb.
Gerry Adams TD has been forced to publicly admit that he concealed the Rape of several children, while Gerry Adams TD knew that his father Gerry Adams snr was a serial child rapist, Gerry Adams TD and his fellow butchers in Belfast afforded Gerry Adams paedophile a full IRA style funeral. Gerry Adams TD is to give Queens Evidence against his brother Liam Dominic Adams who stands accused of raping his daughter Aine since she was a toddler, Gerry Adams TD knew about the rape of Aine and failed to contact the authorities, for fear that his lucrative political career would be damaged.
Gerry Adams serial child rapist and RUC Informer
In 1973 Seamus was 7 years old when he was kidnapped, beaten and Raped by Gerry Adams Snr and two other members of Sinn Fein, here is his short story.
I was 7 years old in 1973; I was walking along the street on my way home from school, there was lots going on then, shootings, bombings, lots of army and police. As I was approaching my home, a black taxi pulled up alongside me, the back door opened and a man with a hand-gun on his lap ordered me to get into the taxi, the man said they just wanted to talk to me about the Brits and if I had seen anything on my way home from school. There were two large men in the front of the taxi, the man in the back seat ordered the driver to move. Within a few minutes I was being ushered into one of the many derelict houses in our area. The men closed the front door of the house behind us and one of them stayed at the door with the hand-gun. The man who had been in the back seat of the taxi with me, and I now know to be Gerry Adams Snr, ordered me to remove my clothes, I was very afraid and two of the men started ripping my cloths of, I cried and tried to resist them but they battered me. Both men lifted me onto an old wooded table, one was squeezing my privates really hard, the other already had his trousers open and was forcing me to open my legs. For almost two hours they, all three men, systematically raped and beat me, when they had finished raping me I could not hold my own weight, I fell to the floor. Gerry Adams warned me that both my family and I would be shot dead if any word of my ordeal was disclosed to anyone. As Gerry Adams was walking out the door of the derelict house, he turned to me as I lay on the ground and said, “If your mother asks why your clothes are torn, tell her you were in a fight at school”, he banged the door after him, I just lay there crying, I was in so much pain. I know that as many as 60 children were raped by the same Sinn Fein gang, I have spoken with many of the victims, however, what can we do, the beasts are all dead now and those who protected them are well protected.
OPINION: THE LACK of debate on the children’s referendum reflects the uncontroversial nature of the proposed amendment to the Constitution, but also how limited it is in scope.
The amendment is certainly not a threat to the rights of parents. We are not entering a “brave new world” of unbridled State power to intervene in the family, as the opposing voices to this amendment are unjustifiably claiming.
Nor, as John Waters stated in his column (October 5th), is this amendment seeking to radically alter the “ecology of family rights”. However, I agree with his analysis (October 12th) in one respect: the lack of debate on the amendment is worrying.
The amendment has four broad aims: First, article 42A.1 re-emphasises that the child, as an individual, has natural and imprescriptible rights which the State, by its laws, must in so far as it can vindicate and defend. This amendment is similar in wording to another provision of the Constitution (article 42.5) which is to be deleted if the proposal is accepted by the people.
These rights have been interpreted to include, among others, the right to be fed, cared for, educated and nurtured. This provision recognises that for practically all children in the Republic, it is their natural parents who will fully and adequately protect these rights for their children.
Second, article 42A.2.1 sensibly permits the State to intervene, in a proportionate manner and in a way that protects the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child, where the safety or welfare of a child is “likely to be prejudicially affected”.
The precise meaning of the phrase “likely to be prejudicially affected” has not yet been interpreted by the courts. Given the required harmonious interpretation of this provision with other provisions relating to “the family” in the Constitution, this will not seek to supplant decisions of the marital family unless there is some significant threat to the welfare or safety of the child.
Third, article 42A.2.2 and article 42A.3 will permit the Oireachtas to equalise adoption laws for those children from marital families with children whose parents are unmarried. Irish law, in particular the Adoption Act 2010 and the scheme of the 2012 Adoption Bill, provides extensive rights to the natural mother and marital parents.
Extinguishing parental rights may be done voluntarily, or in situations of abandonment. Adoption is a long and complex process and this amendment ensures that only where the best interests of the child are served by the adoption will it be permitted to go ahead.
Finally, under article 42A.4, in resolving proceedings relating to preventing the safety and welfare of the child being prejudicially affected, or in adoption, guardianship, custody and access disputes, the “best interests of the child” is to be the paramount consideration.
In such proceedings, in so far as is practicable and subject to a child’s age and maturity, courts must take into account the views of the child.
The phrase “best interests of the child” causes some concern to those advocating a No vote. On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme on September 20th, Kathy Sinnott argued that this principle was an invidious invasion of international law (article 3, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) into domestic law.
She also referred to the Supreme Court case in 2001 in which the State successfully appealed a High Court decision requiring it to provide education for her son, Jamie, who has autism, beyond the age of 18.
Sinnott argued that whereas the Constitution provided adequate protection for children with special needs, the State built its case on the provisions of the UN convention, which were now to be confirmed by the proposed amendment.
However, this is not reflected in the actual decision of the Supreme Court, which came to its decision firmly on the basis of the education provisions of the Constitution.
The background to the introduction of the amendment is sadly all too well known: decades of societal and legal ignorance or wilful blindness to those in industrial schools and laundries, coupled with a depressing amount of child physical and sexual abuse. No amount of laws, constitutional or otherwise, can prevent all forms of neglect or abuse of children at the hands of those who should be caring for them, or from predatory strangers. Even if funding was increased to State and administrative agencies whose role is to protect children, this would not offer a cast-iron protection of children against all forms of abuse.
It would be wise that those advocating a Yes vote do not overstate the potential impact of this amendment. It will not, of itself, deal with significant issues relating to the funding and administration of child and family welfare services offered by the State.
It does not provide for the best interests of the child or for the views of the child to be considered, in matters outside general child welfare/protection disputes. In areas of social welfare, housing, transport, educational provision and so on, there will be no obligation upon State/administrative agencies to have regard to the best interests of the child or the voice of the child.
Indeed, if one looks back at the key complaints that children or their parents have made to the children’s ombudsman, many relate to public authorities not taking into consideration the rights and/or voice of the child in disputes that affect the family.
So, while this amendment should be passed, it is not the panacea to cure all ills. Given the recession, the task of the Oireachtas, in terms of resources for child and family services is proving ever more difficult.
While the amendment will address particular issues relating to children, it does not reflect a genuine understanding of the voice, the rights, and the inherent dignity of all children. For now, these issues must be addressed by the political system. So while I will be voting Yes, I also regret that a more transformative and less cautious amendment will not be before us on November 10th.
When night came, the terror started. Across Belfast, terrorist punishment squads scoured the streets for petty criminals.
Screams and gunshots rang out after dark as summary justice was handed out. For so-called anti-social elements caught by these gangs, the punishments were lingering - and gruesome. No mercy was shown.
Bundling the victim into a waiting car, the terrorists would take the suspect to a favourite secluded spot - a cemetery where IRA volunteers had been buried with full military honours as a salvo of bullets were fired into the air.
United: Gerry Adams at the funeral of his mother Annie in 1992, standing behind his father, Gerry Senior
There, in the dead of night, sentence would be pronounced, depending on the severity of the crime.
A car thief might escape with a severe beating with baseball bats for a first offence. But regular offenders faced knee-capping. The victim was ordered to remove their trousers (to prevent infection from fibres forced into their flesh by a bullet) and shot in the back of the leg. Crippled for life, this served as a permanent warning to them and others.
Drug dealers received a double knee-capping, while those seized by the Nutting Squad - a gang of sophisticated IRA killers who tortured suspected informers with power drills - rarely lived to tell the tale.
Such brutal justice was commonplace - and sanctioned by the IRA leadership. At the height of the Troubles, a knee-capping was being carried out every night in Belfast, with more than 6,000 crippled.
But by far the most grisly punishments were reserved for 'nonces' - sex offenders and child molesters, regarded as the lowest of the low.
Accused: Liam Adams worked with children for decades before his crimes came to light
Indeed, the punishment squads were often superfluous to requirement, because gangs of locals would take the law into their own hands.
In one case, a man was locked in a van with three savage dogs and torn to pieces. In another, a rapist was crucified by being nailed to a fence beside a busy road. Homes of suspected nonces were petrol-bombed by mobs.
Yet the occupant of one terrace house remained unmolested, even though many people - police, social workers, politicians and locals - had heard dreadful gossip about what happened behind his front door.
There was a simple reason this man was not attacked: a huge poster of Gerry Adams, the public face of the IRA, hung from his front window.
And to make sure there was no confusion, the man would greet callers by asking: 'Do you know who my brother is?'
For the occupant was Liam Adams, little brother of Gerry, kingpin of the organisation and a man who reached worldwide prominence when Margaret Thatcher ordered that his voice could not be broadcast in order to prevent the IRA benefiting from the 'oxygen of publicity'.
Liam's warning sign worked. It made clear he was an IRA ' untouchable' on account of his family connections. Due to the prominence of Gerry and his father, Gerry senior, also a stalwart of the IRA, the Adams family was regarded as 'terrorist aristocracy' in Belfast.
Such power meant that for more than three decades, Liam managed to escape retribution for the rape and sexual abuse of his daughter Aine, which began in the Seventies when she was just four and ended when she was ten.
This week, Liam finally handed himself into the police to face sex abuse charges - 22 years after Aine first told 'Uncle Gerry' of the abuse.
Why did Liam hand himself in? Only because his brother Gerry told him to do so after Aine went public with the abuse allegations for the first time in a TV interview.
The truth is that Gerry Adams has spent the past two decades protecting his brother by covering up for his unspeakable crimes and persuading his niece to keep quiet about it - to 'keep it in the family' - in order to protect his own skin.
Yesterday, appalled rape campaigners said Adams could have ended his niece's quest for justice years ago had he spoken out earlier. Yet he chose not to, for the sake of his political career.
The disgust felt at Adams's behaviour is palpable in Ireland, a country reeling from the scandal of paedophile priests.
The brutal facts, according to Aine, are as follows. From 1978, her father Liam used to beat up her mother Sally badly enough to make her run from the house - leaving him free to abuse Aine who, like most victims of paedophiles, told no one. Sally eventually threw out Liam in 1983 and divorced him.
It was only when Aine discovered her father had a new wife with another little girl to abuse that she told her mother, who went to the police.
Aine was examined by police doctors, who confirmed she had been abused, but she says officers were more interested in recruiting members of the Adams family to act as informers than in helping her.
She turned to Uncle Gerry for help, hoping he would punish her father for his unspeakable crimes.
Victim: Aine, Gerry Adams' niece, spoke out in public about her abusive father
Instead, he tried to convince his niece it was her father who was the victim rather than her.
Adams told Aine: 'Our Liam can't cope with life and I'm trying to get him to meet you, but you know he is a coward and might not want to do that.'
Under pressure from some un-named Republicans, Aine withdrew her police complaint and tried to get on with her life. She had two children - but couldn't sleep with the light off or the door closed.
By 2007, Aine was so fed up of being strung along by her uncle that she revived the police investigation. A warrant was issued for Liam's arrest in November 2008.
Facing 23 specimen charges of rape and sexual assault, Liam went on the run. Aine finally spoke out last week because of the lack of any progress concerning his arrest.
So compromised was Gerry Adams by her TV interview that he made a public appeal for Liam to come forward.
But even though Liam voluntarily walked into a police station in Co. Sligo on Monday, he was allowed to walk free because of a legal loophole that meant the arrest warrant - issued in Northern Ireland - was not valid south of the Border.
It is understood Liam told Gardai, the Irish police, he had been living in Northern Ireland, but had crossed the Border to surrender himself.
As for Gerry, a pathological liar who denies to this day he has ever been a member of the IRA, he has claimed he did everything possible to try to help the child victim in the affair. Yet it was his brother he treated as a victim, rather than his niece.
After Liam's divorce, Gerry backed his brother's decision to make a new start in life. He supported his new career working in youth clubs, where he would have easy, regular access to young girls and boys.
Liam was appointed a youth worker at Clonard monastery in West Belfast, where Gerry attended Mass and was close friends with many of the priests, some of whom he would invite to his home nearby.
As the scandal erupted this week, the Sinn Fein leader said he had warned the priests about Liam's unsavoury past - a claim angrily denied by officials and clergy at the monastery.
'We have no record of Gerry Adams giving us any of this type of information,' says a monastery official.
'There is no record whatsoever regarding concerns about Mr Liam Adams during his time of employment at Clonard Youth Centre.'
Last night, Adams had again changed his story, claiming he was appalled to learn that his brother had been working with children - and that 'if I had been aware, I would have tried to stop it'.
He also claims he was 'estranged' from Liam for 20 years after Aine told him of the sex abuse and that they rarely met or spoke.
This, too, is a lie. Gerry Adams was pictured at Liam's second wedding in 1994, smiling happily, during the two decades they were allegedly estranged.
Alongside the brothers was Joe Cahill, a senior Republican, who wore a green ribbon in support of IRA prisoners.
Gerry Adams also paid official visits to youth projects where his brother worked, guaranteeing Liam publicity to help his political ambitions and the potential to raise funds in the community.
While a youth development worker at one project, Liam Adams hosted a visit by their local MP - one Gerry Adams - who unveiled a mural and talked about the pressures that can lead to young people committing suicide.
Liam Adams, who is now in his 50s, handed himself into police after a public appeal by his brother
Adams also refused to intervene when Liam announced he planned to help vulnerable Romanian orphans.
And so he was able to travel to Romania and invite groups of children back to Belfast - with minimal supervision.
Liam coveted publicity. Despite being a secret paedophile and child rapist, in 1996 he garnered favourable headlines by threatening to expose a ring of wealthy perverts he claimed were abusing children.
'We have the names of several business people, who we are 100 per cent sure are involved,' Liam said.
'The authorities should be doing more to investigate, using the evidence that has come to light.'
But then Gerry helped his little brother from the moment he heard of the abuse from Aine. Indeed, he tried to help him carve out a political career of his own.
While the pair were 'estranged', Gerry reportedly even helped arrange for Liam to become a Sinn Fein candidate in Dundalk - only for local officials to rebel at an 'outsider' from Belfast being imposed on them by Adams and the leadership.
In a cynical bid for sympathy, Gerry Adams claimed this week that his family had also been the victims of sexual and physical abuse by his father Gerry senior, who was buried with full military honours in Belfast six years ago.
Adams says he discovered the news about his own father - a thug known as 'Monkey' on account of his simian features - while trying to 'sort out' the business with Aine.
He refused to say whether Liam Adams was abused.
Had the paedophile scandal emerged at the height of the Troubles, commentators believe Adams would have been thrown out of the IRA.
Yet his position as an MP is now under threat amid a welter of new allegations exposing him as a liar.
In a damning new book to be published about the secret life of Gerry Adams, there will be revelations about his role in the case of The Disappeared - an infamous case involving the IRA murder of a dozen civilians.
This will finally nail the lie of Adams's denial of his involvement with the IRA, not to mention revealing the existence of secret tapes about his involvement in the killing of Jean McConville, a mother of ten suspected of being an informer.
