Ex-Crossmaglen Rangers GAA club official Thomas McKenna given 16-year jail term after pleading guilty to 162 sexual abuse offences

Thomas McKenna, 62, with an address at Maghaberry Prison, pleaded guilty to 162 sexual abuse offences, including serious sexual assault, indecent assault, voyeurism and possession of an indecent image of a child.

The offences were against 23 boys and men, ranging in age from 14 to 39, and took place between 1989 and 2018.

McKenna had been a club treasurer at Crossmaglen Rangers GAA in Co Armagh, as well as a postman and a director of the local credit union.

At Belfast Laganside Courthouse on Friday, Judge Patricia Smyth said that McKenna had used his position in the community to “groom and manipulate” his victims, some of whom were particularly young and vulnerable.

The judge said that he manipulated his victims until they felt “utterly powerless” and unable to disclose the abuse, and said the psychological harm which he inflicted was “immeasurable”.

“There is no sentence that this court can pass that will repair that damage,” she added.

She said that some of the offences were carried out in hotels when travelling with the club, at pubs and in toilets in Northern Ireland and Ireland, as well as in his home and in the homes of some of his victims.

Judge Smyth said he bought alcohol for many of his victims, facilitated credit union loans for others and told some of them he could get them promoted to the senior team.

She said the fact that his offending only stopped when he was arrested was “a particularly serious concern”.

She said that some of the victims had written to her to speak about the effect the abuse had on their lives. This included suicide attempts, addiction issues, a disruption to their education and the loss of intimacy in relationships.

“A sense of guilt and shame permeates many of the accounts. Guilt that it happened,” she said.

“Young men tortured with the thought that they were somehow to blame, when in truth, they bear no responsibility.”

She also spoke about the parents of the boys and men involved as victims who had “entrusted their children to your care”.

“You manipulated those parents, just as you manipulated their children. You befriended them, disguising your true nature under a mask of respectability.”

The judge was also highly critical of McKenna’s approach to his defence, calling it “an attempt to continue the psychological power games that you’d played for years”.

“I do not accept that the number of allegations is a reason for the delay in accepting guilt,” she said.

“You knew what you had done and you decided to meet the allegations through a mix of negative denials, assertions of consensual relationships and innocent horseplay misinterpreted.

“Had you contested the charges, you would have given false instructions and challenged honest accounts from victims,” she added.

Referencing an explanation given by McKenna that his offending was linked to his “inability” to accept his gay sexual orientation, Judge Smyth said: “It is ironic that while you felt that being gay was wrong, you did not appear to have had any compunction about sexually abusing children.”

Remarking that the scale and duration of the offences elevated the case to an “unprecedented level”, she sentenced McKenna to 16 years in prison, with seven years on licence.

‘Hidden in plain sight’

In a statement after today’s sentencing, Detective Chief Inspector Kerry Brennan said: “Thomas McKenna was a respected and influential member of the Crossmaglen community, who used his positions of trust to gain access to young males to carry out the litany of abuse as outlined in court today.

“His offending spanned over a lengthy 30-year period. He has caused long-lasting psychological damage to his victims and their families and I’ve no doubt that learning of the severity of his offending today will ricochet through the Crossmaglen community. Predators of this type are incredibly manipulative, and invest a lot of time building trust and embedding themselves within communities to carry out their offending under the radar. Hidden in plain sight.

“Our thoughts today are with the victims that this man preyed on, and abused for so many years. It takes huge courage to speak out and break the cycle of abuse. We would like to commend them for coming forward and working with our dedicated detectives. We would continue to encourage anyone who has experienced any form of sexual abuse to contact police on 101, or in an emergency call 999. Please don’t suffer in silence fearing you won’t be believed. We will listen to you and we will act. It doesn’t matter when the abuse happened, we will still investigate and work to bring abusers before the courts as we have done today.”

Victims’ joint statement

The victims released an emotive joint statement today, saying: “We thank Her Honour Judge Patricia Smyth for the sentence handed down earlier today.

“As a group, we sincerely thank our families, our community and the members of the Crossmaglen Rangers Club for the unwavering loyalty, support and care you have provided us. We want to thank the Police Service for the empathy and swiftness in which they dealt with the crimes committed against us from when they were first informed almost five years ago.

“In addition, we also wish to thank the Public Prosecution Service and the prosecution team for their professionalism and diligence in preparing the case for Court and ensuring we received the guilty pleas for the litany of crimes committed against us when we were children. And most importantly, to ensure this individual will never be a part of our community again.

“While there were many difficult days as we relived the crimes committed against us, we as a group are immensely proud of the strength, dignity and unity we've displayed throughout this process to get the justice we deserve and ensure that the pain and suffering inflicted upon us will not be felt by another generation in our community. We urge anyone else who has suffered similarly to take confidence from our journey and to reach out to the relevant authorities.

“To John, Bernie at Ulster GAA, and Jill, the investigating officer within the Police Service; thank you for hearing our voices. Thank you for the support, comfort and reassurance you have provided us throughout this process. Each one of you went above and beyond your call of duty. We will be forever indebted to you for everything you have done for us, individually and collectively. We hope your families are very proud of you.“Finally, we request that our privacy and that of our community is respected.”