Kincora: Former resident vows to pursue civil action over claims he was trafficked for sexual abuse

Richard Kerr, who spent time as a child at Kincora Boys’ Home in east Belfast, is seeking damages from the Department of Health, the Northern Ireland Office, the PSNI and the Home Office.

The lawsuit includes claims for assault and battery, misfeasance in public office, breach of statutory duty and negligence.

An attempt is to be made to strike out the case at Belfast High Court later this week.

Mr Kerr’s legal firm KRW has said it is resisting the attempt and will request the trial judge hear the application and adjudicate upon it.

Mr Kerr contends that all the investigations to date into institutions including Williamson House and the Kincora have been “flawed”.

He said he hopes his civil action at Belfast High Court will “ventilate and expose the truth of the systemic abuse he and others suffered and endured and to establish the liability of all the state agencies responsible for this”.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry found that 39 boys were abused at Kincora and in 1981 three men were jailed for abusing 11 boys. However, it found no evidence that security agencies were complicit in the abuse.

Mr Kerr resided at Kincora and other homes between the age of five and 18. He said he was abused over 10 years.

He also rejected the public apology delivered to institutional abuse victims last week by Stormont ministers and some of the institutions which ran homes as “an apology written by civil servants”, and an “empty handwringing rhetoric”.

Mr Kerr dismissed it as “meaningless”, adding an apology can be made but it “need not be accepted as it does not – and cannot – salve the scars, physical, emotional, and psychological – caused by systemic abuse inflicted or orchestrated by those charged with the care of those in their charge”.

He also pointed out that the apology was not made in the name of the leader of Belfast City Council, the Chief Constable, the Secretary of State or the Home Secretary.

Meanwhile, Mr Kerr has suggested establishing a memorial park on the site of Kincora for those who were abused.

Belfast City Council has granted planning permission for apartments to be built on the site.