Barry McCarney also abused baby Millie Martin
Child abuser Michael Stevens who abused two little cousins aged five and eight
Prisoners inside Maghaberry prison are set to riot over child killers and sex offenders sharing family visiting hours.
The maximum security facility is a powder keg after prison authorities forced inmates to share visiting space with a string of notorious sex abusers – now prisoners are set to defy prison orders and revolt.
Visits have already been cancelled as tensions rise in the prison.
The Sunday World can reveal prison bosses are transferring convicted child killers, rapists and sex abusers to Braid House during visiting times attended by children.
The sex offenders share the same open plan room during the same designated time visiting time as small children play in the crèche within hands reach.
Furious inmates, many of whom are serving life sentences, have vowed to retaliate if prison staff refuse to end the situation, fearful for safety of their young children and grandchildren.
Worried family members have already cancelled visits fearing being caught up in a prison riot and exposing their children to the depraved perverts.
Sources claim the prison is a powder keg set to explode.
Maghaberry Prison
The visiting arrangements have been branded dangerous by furious and distraught relatives who fear their loved ones will be hurt or killed in the predicted prison bust-up.
Tensions have been rising for weeks after the merging of the prisoner visits. Until then Braid House was a quiet section of the prison used to house vulnerable and low maintenance prisoners, many who are lifers content to put their heads down and serve their sentence
The arrival of inmates such as Barry McCarney who seriously sexually assaulted and murdered 15-month-old Millie Martin in Tyrone in 2009 has proved too much for inmates and their families to swallow.
“You can see them looking at the kids and it makes my stomach churn at the thought of what they could be thinking.
“One of the men, who is in for life, told them if he caught them looking even in the same direction as his granddaughter he would beat the life out of them,” said one prison source.
“Those scumbags are put in here to keep them away from children yet in here they have access to them on a weekly basis.
“For some of those bastards just looking at a child would be enough to keep their sick desires going, these are men who get their kicks from raping and killing kids,” the source said.
It is not only the thought of exposing their children that has stopped relatives from visiting – they are terrified of being caught in a confrontation.
A concerned mother said after a recent visit to the prison: “If something kicked off everyone would be in trouble because there would be nowhere for us to run, it’s just one big open room.
“We can’t take the choice of putting children through that never mind the thought of those evil bastards getting some kind of kick looking at our babies and children.
“We should never have been put in this position, they never even had the decency to inform us that it was happening, we just turned up one day as usual and they were there, it was like walking into a horror movie,” she said.
Prisoners who have officially complained have been told to accept such changes or suffer the consequences, losing visits or being moved to the main prison.
Notices have also been put up warning prisoners not to antagonise or give eye contact to prisoners such as McCarney.
There are 90 inmates in Braid House which include ‘fireball brothers’ Niall, Martin, Christopher and Stephen Smith who were convicted of the manslaughter of sex offender Thomas O’Hare and his girlfriend Lisa McClatchy.
The pair burned to death after their house was torched by the brothers in Keady in Co Armagh in November 2008.
During their trial it was revealed that O’Hare had sexually abused Stephen when he was eight years old and they acted out of concern that he would sexually abuse their children.
“There are people inside who would think nothing about doing these sex offenders and child killers serious harm. The prison staff need their heads read, what part of this did they think was a good idea?, asked the mother.
“Just because the men in Braid house could be considered as model prisoners they would never accept having to share their family visit time with sickos like that.
“Those men wait all week to see their kids and enjoy some time with their families, now that’s ruined.
“What the prison staff forgot is that these same men aren’t in for parking fines, this could turn nasty very quickly and that is what’s worrying us.
“If something kicks off the riot squad would be called in and you know what that means, people will get hurt,” another source told Sunday World.
Other residents of Baird House include sectarian killer Jeff Lewis who was part of the gang who attacked and killed Ballymena schoolboy Michael ‘Mickey Bo’ McAlveen. He was jailed last November.
Lifers have objected to being forced to sit in the same room as twisted kid killer McCarney and sicko child abuser Michael Stevens.
Stevens sexually abused two little cousins, just five and eight years of age, yet insists they children came on to him during his trial.
The roly poly pervert tried to convince jurors he was in a wheelchair to receive a lighter sentence until exposed by the Sunday World jumping out of a car.
The Sunday World contacted the Prison Service. A spokesperson stated: “New visiting arrangements in one specific area of the prison became effective for sound operational reasons.”