Let Border Fox be free, as long as he leaves rest of us alone, says Fr D’Arcy

A PRIEST who feared he’d die at the hands of Dessie ‘The Border Fox’ O’Hare believes the freed psycho should be let live his life “so long as he leaves the rest of us alone”.

Father Brian D’Arcy famously acted to try to end the brutal kidnapping ordeal of dentist John O’Grady by the evil ex-IRA man, 69.

Deranged O’Hare — who chopped off two of the innocent man’s fingers in the horror 1987 assault — is now a free man following his surprise release last week.

Popular cleric Fr D’Arcy previously told how he believed he would die during the ordeal that began after the O’Grady family asked him to intervene.

The priest admitted he didn’t think O’Hare should have been released in 2006 under the Good Friday Agreement, but later made his peace with it.

The Border Fox was returned to prison in 2019 when he received a seven-year stretch for assault and false imprisonment, before he was let out last week.

The former INLA thug told inmates of his plans to build a new life for himself in south Armagh while committing ­himself to Christianity, having found God while behind bars.

Fr Brian told The Irish Sun he believes O’Hare will be forgiven by God if his remorse is genuine.

He told us: “If he is sincere and remorseful then he should be let to live his life, so long as he leaves the rest of us alone.

“I wasn’t involved in this particular case. I didn’t think he should have been released in 2006.

“But he was under the Good Friday Agreement and that was a matter for the Justice Department, who made the decision.

“You have to accept it. He soon went back to his life of crime, which we all know.

“If he is sincere and adopts a new way of life — a completely new way of life which doesn’t see him return to his old ways — then God is all-forgiving.

“He has been responsible for a great deal of evil and he has many crimes to atone for but no one is beyond redemption.”

The priest continued: “He would have to commit to a very different life, completely different to his past and would need to be fully committed to God, and to stick to it.

“There is redemption for anyone who asks for it. The power of God is such that no one is beyond saving.”

RANDOM TERROR

Fr D’Arcy was a close friend of Dr Austin Darragh, a millionaire who was the intended target of the monstrous kidnapping carried out by the Border Fox in 1987.

He previously told how scared he was as he drove the £1.5million ransom from Dublin to Cork, where the money would change hands.

In an interview several years ago. Fr Brian said: “The O’Grady family phoned to ask me to be the broker.

“They told me, ‘The guards said you might not come out of it alive’.

“I replied: ‘That’s the only reason I’m a priest. If I can save a man’s life, I will’.

I did not expect to come back from that

“I did not expect to come back from that. I was 42. It was twice as tense (after his role in the negotiations was made public). There I was driving down with a million and a half in the car, the whole country knowing about it and I couldn’t get out even to go to the toilet.”

By the time Fr Brian got to his destination a few minutes late, Dr O’Grady had been rescued during a bloody shoot-out in Cabra.

The priest added: “If I had been on time I might have handed the money over to someone.”