Sex Offender Priest Says He Is No Threat

Pedophile, Bill Carney, has appealed for a second chance as he believes the does not pose an immediate threat to children.

Earlier this year, the Gloucestershire Echo newspaper published an article revealing he was living in the home of his ex-wife, close to a children’s playground.

The newspaper has now published a letter Carney had written in response to that article.

"Your article depicts me as a threat or a danger to children. Nothing could be further from the truth," he wrote.

"For over 30 years now I have been a recovering alcoholic and the only mark against my name is three points on my driving licence for doing 38mph in a 40mph area.

"In these 30 years there has not been the slightest suggestion of anything that would indicate that I am a danger to any child.

"I have lived in Northleach for about seven years and I have been in that playground once…Again, in my time and years in Northleach, nothing has occurred to suggest that I was in any way, shape of form a danger to the welfare of any child."

Carney likened himself to Andy Coulson – British Prime Minister David Cameron’s former director of communications – and said: "The Prime Minister said he gave Mr Andy Coulson a second chance and that everyone does deserve a second chance.

His former stepson, however, has accused the former priest of attempting to manipulate others – as he says Carney did his family for more than a decade.

For 14 years, Carney's dark past was kept secret from his then wife and her sons, and no one from the Irish authorities even notified her when they married in 2004.

The former Catholic priest was accused by the Murphy report, which was published two years ago, of abusing at least 32 children.

Carney, who was ordained in 1974 and defrocked in 1992, left Ireland and was traced to Spain before settling in Northleach, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire in England.

Following the Echo article, Carney is thought to have fled to Spain, although it is believed that he is back in England, possibly around Cheltenham and the Cotswolds.

(LB)