Belfast boys' home abuse victims win legal bid

Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers said an appropriate forum for the Kincora
allegations to be investigated was through a Stormont-commissioned inquiry.

Residents of a notorious Northern Ireland boys’ home are to be allowed to challenge a decision to exclude it from the UK-wide inquiry into establishment paedophile rings.

A high court judge in Belfast on Tuesday granted a number of former inmates from the Kincora home a judicial review into the decision to keep this scandal out of the investigation, headed by judge Lowell Goddard from New Zealand.

The Kincora boys’ home has been linked to a paedophile ring, some of whose members were allegedly being blackmailed by MI5 and other branches of the security forces during the Troubles.

Until now, the home secretary, Theresa May, has resisted demands from men who were abused at the home – and Amnesty International – that the inquiry be widened to include Kincora.

The campaigners want to establish whether the security services turned a blind eye to the abuse and instead used it to compromise a number of extreme Ulster loyalists guilty of abusing boys at the home.  (more...)

Belfast boys' home abuse victims win legal bid