This article is from page 10 of the 2007-05-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 10 JPG
ANTHONY Kelly never knew anything about his father and was brought up in an atmosphere of se- crecy, the trial has heard.
Mr Kelly was brought up by his maternal grandparents and he in1- tially believed that his birth mother was his sister. His family was very secretive about his father.
His grandmother told him the story about who his mother was when he was aged seven.
The Director of the Central Mental Hospital, Professor Harry Kennedy, who gave evidence for the prosecu- tion on Thursday, provided a history of Mr Kelly.
“I note a history of Mr Kelly’s up- bringing in an atmosphere of secre- cy,’ said Professor Kennedy.
He said that Mr Kelly’s mater- nal grandfather was a cobbler, who worked in Ennis, and the family lived in Ruan.
His birth mother moved to the UK after Mr Kelly was born and she
married there and had two sons, who are half-brothers of the accused.
Mr Kelly fell out with an aunt who lives in Ennis, as she refused to give him the keys of the family home in Ruan, when he returned from the US a number of years ago. He has con- tact with another aunt, who lives in Ore
The trial was told that Mr Kelly went to school in Ruan, where he got on well with teachers and class- mates, with the exception of the headmaster, who he described as as orbs ae
He worked in the United States during summers and moved there after sitting his Leaving Certificate.
He was a superintendent in charge of buildings.
He married a woman from Para- guay and they had two children. They later separated.
While in America, he developed a problem with crack cocaine.
In 1994, he faked his own kidnap- ping, in the hope he would extort money from his aunt’s husband, the
court heard.
He was convicted of fraud and was sentenced to 20 months in jail.
While in prison, he got treatment for his cocaine addiction and he was later deported back to Ireland.
In October 2004, his former wife informed him that his daughter was pregnant. This shocked and devas- tated him and he began to drink very heavily.
‘He would fall into a stupor in the afternoon,’ said Professor Kennedy.
“After October 2004, he felt he was not the same person. He was in a period of depression. He has a lot of blanks in his memory around this time because of his heavy drinking,” he added.
He moved his mattress in front of his television in his Kerry home and continued drinking a bottle of alco- hol every day…“the biggest bottle I could get”’.
He drank a bottle of Bacardi eve- ry day, but did not drink the night before he drove to Clare and killed Liam Moloney.