latest on kincora sex scandal

The Kincora Boys’ Home scandal, centered on the sexual abuse of boys at a care home in east Belfast from the 1950s to the 1980s, continues to generate significant attention due to allegations of a high-level cover-up involving British authorities and prominent figures. Below is a summary of the latest developments based on recent reports:

Recent Developments (2023–2025):

1. Allegations Against Lord Mountbatten:
   • In May 2025, veteran journalist Chris Moore published Kincora: Britain’s Shame, which alleges that Lord Mountbatten, a senior royal killed by the IRA in 1979, sexually abused boys at Kincora. One victim, Arthur Smyth, claims he was 11 when Mountbatten abused him twice at the home. Smyth identified Mountbatten after seeing news reports of his death. These claims have reignited calls for transparency, with Moore describing the scandal as the UK’s “most enduring child sex scandal” due to an alleged establishment cover-up.
2. Legal Actions by Victims:
   • In 2024, two former residents, Gary Hoy and Richard Kerr, won a High Court battle to reinstate their civil actions against the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Home Secretary. They allege that a paedophile housemaster, William McGrath, was protected from prosecution because he was an MI5 agent. The court heard that police were informed in 1973 of a paedophile ring centered around McGrath but were obstructed from investigating due to his intelligence ties. A hearing for Hoy’s case was scheduled for 2024, though no updates on the outcome are available in the provided sources.
3. Calls for Release of Sealed Files:
   • Posts on X and media reports highlight ongoing demands to release government files on Kincora, which are sealed until 2065 or 2085. Critics, including victims and journalists, argue this secrecy protects the British establishment, with allegations that MI5 and MI6 used Kincora as a “honey trap” to blackmail unionist politicians and paramilitaries.
4. Historical Context and Official Inquiries:
   • The Kincora Boys’ Home, operational from 1958 to 1980, was demolished in 2022. At least 29 boys were abused by staff members William McGrath, Raymond Semple, and Joseph Mains, who were jailed in 1981 for abusing 11 boys. A 2017 Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry found no evidence of state or intelligence service collusion, a conclusion widely criticized by victims and advocates as inadequate. A 2022 Police Ombudsman report deemed complaints about police failure to investigate as “legitimate and justified.”
5. Public and Media Sentiment:
   • Recent posts on X reflect public frustration, with users like @SuzyJourno and @MenAtWork_MC calling for the truth to be revealed and describing Kincora as a “house of horrors.” The sentiment underscores distrust in the British government’s handling of the scandal, particularly given allegations of MI5’s role in protecting abusers.

Critical Perspective:

The persistent allegations of a cover-up involving MI5, MI6, and high-profile figures like Lord Mountbatten suggest systemic failures to protect vulnerable children, potentially for political leverage. The sealing of files until 2065 or 2085 raises questions about transparency and accountability, as does the 2017 inquiry’s dismissal of collusion claims, which contrasts with victim testimonies and court findings. The lack of a comprehensive public inquiry continues to fuel distrust, and the recent legal victories by victims indicate that the judicial system may be a key avenue for uncovering further details.

Limitations:

No new developments beyond May 2025 are available in the provided sources, and some claims, particularly those from X posts, remain inconclusive without corroboration. The full extent of the scandal, including the role of intelligence services, may not be clarified until sealed files are released or further legal proceedings conclude.

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The book alleges that Lord Mountbatten sexually abused five boys. PA

kincora

New claims Mountbatten sexually abused children from notorious Belfast boys’ home

A new book, ‘Kincora: Britain’s Shame’, alleges that MI5 and the British political establishment covered up abuse that took place at Kincora.

4.01pm, 16 May 2025

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A NEW BOOK claims that boys were taken from a notorious Belfast children’s home to Lord Louis Mountbatten’s home in Co Sligo, where he then sexually abused them. 

‘Kincora: Britain’s Shame’ alleges that MI5 and the British political establishment have attempted to cover up his involvement in a paedophile ring which operated out of Kincora Boys’ Hostel in East Belfast in the 1970s. 

The book was written by former BBC journalist Chris Moore, who has investigated Kincora for over 40 years. 

Kincora opened on Belfast’s Upper Newtownards Road, close to Stormont’s Parliament Buildings, in May 1958. It closed in October 1980 following the exposure of sexual abuse there. The building was demolished in 2022. 

According to the book, five people claim that they were sexually abused and raped by Mountbatten, who was a great-uncle to King Charles III.

Moore spoke to three of them, who alleged that they were taken to Classiebawn Castle, Mountbatten’s home in Mullaghmore, in the summer of 1977, and were raped by him. Two of the boys lived in Kincora at the time. 

One of the men said they were taken to Classiebawn by Joe Mains, a paedophile who was a warden at Kincora.

Speaking to The Journal, Moore said that Mains was the leader of the paedophile ring. 

“Joe Mains took naked photographs of the boys in Kincora, so that he could show these boys to his clients, and they could order whichever boy they wanted,” he said.

“That’s new evidence that’s come from one of the survivors of Mountbatten’s sexual abuse.”

The former Kincora Boys Home on Upper Newtownards Road in Belfast was demolished in 2022.

Mains, along with two other senior staff at Kincora – Raymond Semple and William McGrath – were jailed in 1981 for abusing 11 boys there. 

McGrath was the housemaster at Kincora and a prominent member of the Orange Order. He was also involved with Tara, an armed Loyalist paramilitary organisation. 

In the book, Moore writes that police sources told him that McGrath was an agent informer for MI5 in the 1970s while employed at Kincora.

MI5 ‘obstructed investigations’

He said that George Caskey, an RUC detective who led inquiries into the boys’ home in the 1980s, told him that MI5 “obstructed” his investigations and that to him, this represented “criminal actions”.

Nothing was done about it. They got away with it.

“I have used secret documents that disclose exactly how MI5 frustrated the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980s,” Moore said.

“I’ve got emails and telex messages that they used at the time that show that MI5 did not want any of their officers to be questioned or to be summoned to a court.”

He said MI5 persuaded the British government not to have a full judicial inquiry, which resulted in a “watered down” inquiry “under an English judge, as MI5 demanded”. 

Mountbatten was killed when the IRA detonated a bomb on his boat in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo in August 1979. His 14-year-old grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, and a local teenager who worked for him – Paul Maxwell – were also killed. Another member of his party – the Dowager Lady Brabourne – died the day after the attack.

During a visit to Ireland in 2015, then-Prince Charles visited the site of the attack in Mullaghmore. The killing was later dramatised for The Crown, the Netflix series about the British royal family, in 2020. 

Arthur Smyth was 11 years old when he claims he was raped twice by Mountbatten in 1977. He told Moore that he had no idea who Mountbatten was until he saw on the news in 1979 that he had been killed. 

“I went up to my bedroom. I started crying. I felt sick,” Smyth says in the book.

“That somebody in high stature like this could do such a thing, because we all think that a paedophile is a bloke that you don’t know, that he’s weird-looking or he doesn’t look right, but he fooled everybody.

“He was a paedophile and people need to know him for what he was … not for what they’re portraying him to be.”

In 2022, Smyth waived his right to anonymity to make the allegation against Mountbatten and launched legal proceedings against a number of institutions. 

It came a month after the publication of a report by NI Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson, which found that complaints made about the failure of police to investigate allegations of sexual abuse in Kincora were “legitimate and justified”.

Moore writes in the book that two separate investigations into Kincora in 1975 were blocked by MI5 and the then Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). 

“Those investigations should have been allowed to grow then… For five years after that, boys continued to be raped and sexually abused.”

He also writes that secret government files on Kincora have been locked away, some until 2065 and others until 2085. 

He said that the British intelligence services “need to reveal what they know”. 

“What’s in the files? What is it they’re hiding? What do they want to hide? Did they know that boys were being sexually abused? Did they do nothing about it?”.