The first openly LGBT city councillor in Galway, Ireland has resigned following allegations he groomed and sexually abused a teen boy.
On January 1, a survivor came forward and posted two videos to his Twitter detailing his experience with Galway city councillor Owen Hanley. In the videos, the survivor, who goes by the name Jaimie Mac Giolla Bháin on Twitter, states he had been “groomed” by Hanley started from when he was just 16 years old.
“I am a victim of sexual abuse, catfishing, and underage grooming. Owen Hanley did this to me. Mr. Hanley operated a fake Twitter account under the name Irish Jock, using the handle @leftmuscle,” Bháin recounts. “He posed as a teenager and reached out to me on Twitter, knowing who I was from previous engagements in the Social Democrats.”
Bháin then states that Hanley had coerced him into sending explicit photos of himself beginning from when he was just 16 years old to February of 2022.
The survivor says he confronted Hanley about the abuses, and while Hanley denied any knowledge of Bháin’s claims, immediately after, the “fake” accounts Hanley had allegedly operated were wiped from Twitter. As of the writing of this article, @leftmuscle appears to have been deactivated, and sparse captures exist in the Internet Archive.
Bháin’s videos picked up considerable attention in Ireland, and, on January 4, Hanley announced his resignation from the post representing Galway City East for the Irish Social Democrats.
In a Facebook post, Hanley wrote: “In the past 48 hours certain allegations have been made about me. These are very serious matters and will obviously take a considerable length of time to be investigated fully by the appropriate authorities.”
Hanley has since set his Twitter account to ‘private.’
The Social Democrats have also released a short statement claiming they had “notified the relevant statutory authorities charged with investigating these allegations as soon as it became aware of them.”
Hanley was first elected in 2019 and made waves as Galway’s “first openly LGBT+ councillor,” as well as the youngest politician elected to the council. He was also the first member of the Social Democrats elected in the County.
According to a 2019 Galway Daily profile, Hanley was described as a “well-known activist” who sought to be a “role model” for members of the LGBT community.
Soon after being elected, Hanley went head-to-head with a medical whistleblower who had attempted to warn Ireland’s health authority against allowing clinicians to refer Irish children to the Tavistock gender clinic in the United Kingdom.
Consultant endocrinologist Professor Dónal O’Shea had become concerned that the medical transitioning services the Tavistock were offering were “unsafe” for children. Professor O’Shea also asserted that a significant percent of trans-identified individuals needed mental health care.
In response, Hanley slammed O’Shea, calling him “the barrier for trans people seeking the healthcare they need to improve their lives.”
On Twitter, Hanley wrote that O’Shea’s claims were “absolute unscientific nonsense,” continuing: “[Prof. O’Shea is] ignoring international best practice, clearly acting as a gatekeeper against people’s best wishes, mistrusting and misunderstanding trans people. Prof. O’Shea should not be in charge of whether or not people can access trans healthcare.”
In July of last year, it was announced that Tavistock would be shutting its doors by Spring of 2023. The decision was announced following a damning investigation into the clinic’s practices prompted by multiple whistleblowers coming forward to express concerns.
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