ALLEGATIONS OF abuse against Lord Louis Mountbatten, an uncle of King Charles III, will be a heard this week at a Belfast court after a man waved his anonymity to identify his alleged abuser.
Arthur Smyth, a one time resident of Kincora, a children's home in the city, has waived his anonymity to make allegations against Mountbatten who died in 1979 after the IRA detonated a bomb on his boat in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo.
Three other people also died in the explosion.
Mr Smyth’s solicitor, Kevin Winters, said the allegations would form part of a civil action against state bodies responsible for the care of children in Kincora.
"He alleges to have been abused twice as an 11-year-old by the deceased royal," Mr Winters said.
"It’s the first time that someone has stepped forward to take allegations against Lord Mountbatten into a court.
"That decision hasn’t been taken lightly. He understands only too well that it will be a deeply unpopular case with many people coming as it does within weeks of the passing of the queen.
"However, litigation involving mental, physical and sex abuse isn’t undertaken to deliberately offend sensitivities. It’s taken for many reasons including exposing perpetrators and the institutions or other agencies which helped suppress the truth."
Mr Smyth now lives in Australia. He told the Sunday Life Newspaper he had been abused by Lord Mountbatten in 1977 but only realised who he was two years later from news reports after his murder.
The police are also part of the legal action because of their failure to adequately investigate allegations about the children’s home which were first raised in the early seventies.
A public inquiry into historical abuse at a series of institutions reported in 2017 and found that 39 boys had been abused over the years at Kincora, and children there had been let down by the state.
Three former Kincora staff were jailed in 1981 for abusing 11 boys. They have since died.
