Killer confessed to abusing kids days before stabbing woman to death – but cops did not warn her
A KILLER confessed to abusing kids just days before he stabbed a woman to death — but authorities did not warn her about his sordid admissions.
The mum of victim Joanne Gallacher, 33, insisted her tragic daughter would’ve cut ties with James Kennedy, 37, if she’d known about his vile past.
Grieving Louise Gallacher, 63, was shocked to learn the monster had owned up to sex assaults on two children aged six and nine when he was 12, and that he still had urges to prey on youngsters.
The revelations, obtained in legal documents by The Scottish Sun, were kept from mum-of-three Joanne by cops and the NHS.
One of Kennedy’s admissions came just 15 days before he fatally attacked his on-off partner at his home in Biggar, Lanarkshire, knifing her 57 times in December 2018.
Speaking after a fatal accident inquiry into her girl’s horror death ended, Louise, from East Kilbride, said: “It’s devastating to know what he told medics and police, yet Joanne was oblivious.
“If she had known, she’d have binned him immediately. Joanne would never have had anything to do with a beast.”
Kennedy made his first confession in November 2018 after Joanne contacted cops to remove him from her home. He had told her he was suicidal.
While at Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride, he said he’d had sex with a child aged nine or ten, the papers reveal.
As a result of this, “ward staff contacted the police”.
Most read in Scottish News
And a month later, Kennedy spoke to a psychiatric nurse at Lanark Health Centre.
Documents say: “He disclosed that when he was 12 years old, he had sexually abused a six-year-old child and further made the disclosure of continuing to have thoughts of sexually abusing children.”
Findings from the probe into Joanne’s death, held at Hamilton Sheriff Court, will be released in the new year.
Louise added: “Hopefully it will determine that partners of violent and sexually abusive men are told about what they have said.
“It won’t save Joanne but it would hopefully save others.
“I hope that the inquiry fully considers Kennedy’s admissions. They are at the crux of whether Joanne could have been saved.”
Retired psychiatrist Dr Ruth Ward, 62, told the probe Joanne should have been told of his past.
Kennedy’s in the State Hospital, Carstairs, Lanarkshire.
He pled guilty in 2019 to culpable homicide due to diminished responsibility.