A CONVICTED PAEDOPHILE has been questioned over the murder of ten-year-old Bernadette Connolly in Sligo over 40 years ago giving new hope to her family that they will finally have justice, it is reported today.

Ali Bracken writes exclusively in the Irish Daily Mail that Bob Reynolds, now 77 and a former angler, who is in prison in the UK for indecently assaulting a child has been questioned over the murder and a file has been sent to the Director for Public Prosecutions. Reynolds has also served time for the rape of a 10-year-old girl in Mayo in 1974.

Connolly was abducted as she cycled along a country lane near her home in Collooney in Sligo on 4 August 1970. Her body was later found dumped in a bog near the town of Boyle in Co Roscommon four months later.

Despite an investigation no one was ever arrested or charged in connection the murder.

A local priest was suspected at the time but was sent to a mission in Africa during the early stages of the investigation and gardaí were ordered to drop their inquiries into possible clerical involvement.

In 2009, there was a new push to have the case reopened with the late Gerry Ryan leading the campaign. This led to the garda commissioner ordering a review of the case which also came in the wake of the publication of the Murphy Report into clerical sex abuse.

Read more by Ali Bracken in today’s Irish Daily Mail (print edition) >