The director of a well-intentioned charity scheme is at the centre of sexual harassment allegations by some Kenyans who accuse the Irishman of abusing them over a 20-year period.
In the case filed in Ireland,
Dr Michael Elmore Meegan, the director of International Community for Relief of Starvation and Suffering (
Icross) Kenya on Tuesday lost a court battle to block an investigation into a series of devastating claims about his activities in Ngong, Kenya. He appeared before the High Court in Ireland in a futile attempt to gag the
Irish Mail on Sunday, which had run stories on his alleged activities.
Dr Meegan, the case documents claim, paid his workers for letting him cane them for his sexual pleasure.
Affidavits shown to the High Court further alleged that
Meegan skimmed donor accounts to support his lifestyle and flew gay partners from around the world to visit him using the money given to Icross. He denied all the claims and said he was the victim of a conspiracy by “rival” Kenyan aid workers.
He alleged his accusers were making up false stories in the hope of suing for compensation or had been bribed to make their statements. Dr Meegan’s lawyers admitted that three weeks ago, Icross Kenya had tried to get Kenyan police to arrest his accusers. They said they wanted the investigation by The Irish Mail on Sunday stopped until those concerned had been put on trial.
Calls to the police spokesman Eric Kiraithe for a comment went unanswered.
The High Court in Ireland also heard claims that affidavits from Kenya, lodged on Dr Meegan’s behalf and purporting to cast doubt on the integrity of one of the alleged victims, were forgeries. Evidence shown to the court said claims against Dr Meegan had first been made to the police in Kenya in 1986. Similar allegations had been made since then by a variety of Kenyan men. The court was presented with statements by five Kenyan men who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Mr Meegan.
One of the men said the abuse began in 1986 and his parents made him report Mr Meegan to the police.
A sworn affidavit from charity guru Dr Vincent Kenny, then a member of the Icross board, said the claims were investigated by Kenyan CID but a deal was done in which Mr Meegan escaped prosecution if he went to Ireland and did not return to Kenya. But Dr Kenny said in his affidavit that a few months later Mr Meegan returned to Nairobi. When the board of Icross did nothing about it and refused to order him home, he quit. Independent evidence from luminaries of the charity world including a leading Irish professor, a British peer and a charity worker now in Chad with Concern, detailed Mr Meegan’s overtly sexual behaviour towards the young men in public.
On Tuesday, the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, threw out Mr Meegan’s application to gag
The Irish Mail on Sunday.
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