‘I THOUGHT I WAS MAKING A FRIEND’
As paedophile Matthew Horan was yesterday jailed for seven years, one of his victims delivered a devastating statement, giving voice to a generation of children left defenceless online
‘I THOUGHT chatting to someone online was safe. It was like making a new friend... but it made me feel alone, ashamed and scared. I am still sad, angry and disappointed in myself.’
Those devastating words, from a ten-year-old victim of paedophile Matthew Horan, show beyond doubt how urgent action is needed to protect our children online.
The impetus is now clearly on our Government to set a minimum age for ownership of smartphones, a campaign that is being spearheaded by the Irish Daily Mail.
The words of the brave schoolgirl, one of 15 child victims preyed upon by Horan, have now given voice to a generation of children who are defenceless on the internet.
And in a sentence that every parent and guardian of young children should read and remember, the young victim, who was groomed by Horan online, added: ‘I felt scared because I told him where I lived and I was afraid he would come and get me.’
She now says she hopes her devastating impact statement will help prevent other children becoming victims. As it was read in court yesterday, Horan, 26, stood, head bowed.
Judge Martin Nolan told how Horan committed the crimes for his own indulgence and pleasure. He had exploited children in a most horrible
way and his actions would have long-term effects on the victims. The judge added that Horan had displayed a particularly ‘nasty side’ in relation to one child.
He threatened to share the 11-year-old girl’s nude images with her social media friends if she didn’t send him more graphic photos. In the text exchange between them, this little girl repeatedly told Horan that she would kill herself but he continued to coerce her to send more images, the court heard. The judge said Horan had ‘essentially blackmailed the girl and caused huge stress’ and that at ‘her age she wasn’t able to deal with that’.
Horan had used apps such as Skype, Snapchat, Instagram and Kik, an anonymous instant messaging application, to coerce young girls into sending him sexually explicit videos and pictures.
Six of his identified child victims were based in Ireland, while another nine were based around the world.
Dressed in a wine jumper, white shirt, dark trousers and wearing glasses, Horan stood motionless and showed little sign of remorse for the entirety of the 25-minute hearing. He was handed down a seven-and-a-half-year sentence – nine-and-a-half-years, with the final two suspended if he abides to a number of post-release conditions – after pleading guilty to child exploitation as well as possession and distribution of child porn.
Two other victim impact statements, written by the parents of two of the nine-year-old victims, had been read out on Monday.
One father described how his little girl was targeted by an online predator who she thought was a child her own age.
She had bought her Samsung phone with her Holy Communion money to watch cartoons, dancing and singing online. It came as an ‘absolute shock’ to her father when gardaí contacted him.
A mother said her daughter had her phone to watch cartoons and singing. She said she would never get over what had happened. When she learned that the smartphone had been used by a paedophile to target her child, ‘my body started to shake, my blood began to boil’, she said.
Passing sentence, Judge Nolan described Horan as an ‘inadequate’ individual who led an ‘introverted and lonely life’, and was attracted to those ‘not in a capacity to challenge’ his communications sets.
‘It seems Mr Horan has a pretty debased interest in sex,’ he said.
Horan had ‘done a lot of damage’ and while he was aware that what he was doing was wrong he continued to sexually exploit and coerce young children, said the judge.
‘He knew what he was doing was wrong. He understood the damage and yet he didn’t stop what he was doing,’ he said. The judge noted a medical report that stated that child porn became Horan’s autistic fixated interest. A fixated interest serves as a source of pleasure and relaxation for some on the autistic spectrum.
Judge Nolan backdated the sentence to June last year, when Horan was taken into custody. He ordered a Probation Service report into what interventions and services the prison service could provide to reform Horan.
‘If there are such interventions, he has to partake of those meaningfully,’ he said. ‘Mr Horan is coming out [of prison] some day. It is important for society and him that he is given certain interventions that will change him.’
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard this week that a forensic examination of Horan’s computer uncovered recorded Skype calls between him and two nine-yearold girls, both individually and together. The recordings included footage of these girls engaging in graphic sexual acts.
Horan also took part in sexually explicit text conversations with the girls, during which there would be an exchange of photos.
He would use Kik to share child porn images and videos with unidentified users from around the world, most of whom claimed to be young teenagers. In a forensic investigation that took over a year, expert gardaí discovered thousands of images and videos of child porn. Some involved babies.
Horan also engaged in graphic text exchanges with the child users in which he would describe violent sexual acts.
Prosecuting gardaí said Horan would copy and paste the same descriptions of sexual acts he would like to do and send them to multiple message recipients. He would also send Kik messages to users, opening with the question: ‘Yo, wanna see some child porn?’ before sending graphic images.
Horan, of St John’s Crescent, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty to a count each of sexually exploiting two girls within the State on dates between April 1 and November 23, 2014. He pleaded guilty to two more counts of sexually exploiting a child and one count of distributing child porn on dates in 2015.
He further pleaded guilty to possessing child porn at his address on July 11, 2015.
He pleaded guilty to three further counts of sexually exploiting female children through Snapchat and Instagram in the State on dates between May 21, 2015, and July 7, 2016. He also pleaded guilty to possessing child porn on a Sony mobile phone at his home on July 7, 2016. He has no previous convictions. The charges, for which Horan was sentenced yesterday, resulted from two raids on his home. Further charges are expected as a result of a third raid on his house.
‘Yo, wanna see some child porn?’
TODAY, Matthew Horan, the online paedophile who coerced children into sending him graphic sexual images of themselves, is exactly where he should be – behind bars.
Handed down a nine-and-a-half year sentence, with two years suspended, it is heartening to see he has been properly punished for his appalling actions.
Too often we have seen offenders who have committed truly shocking crimes getting away with sentences that do not adequately reflect their horrific deeds – but thankfully, this was not the case here.
This should certainly be welcomed, for this is the man who preyed upon a number of vulnerable children, who showed no remorse whatsoever in the course of his abuse, and who continued to taunt these helpless children even when one distraught child said that she would take her own life.
Indeed, it is the heartbreaking words of one of his victims, a ten-year-old girl, that are so difficult to come to terms with – words that reflect that this was a youngster who thought that she was safe, and who had no idea that something this horrendous could ever happen just because she was using playing online.
‘I thought chatting to someone online was safe,’ she said. ‘It was like making a new friend... but it made me feel alone, ashamed and mostly scared.’
If ever we needed convincing that there is an urgent need for the introduction of a legal minimum age when it comes to the ownership of smartphones, then surely those distressing words from this young child are all the proof we need.
And while the loathsome activities of the likes of Matthew Horan are both repugnant and sickening at a personal and societal level, we must not forget that young children are also being subjected, day in and day out, to myriad other dangers, and simply because they have a smartphone in their possession.
In a perverse way, the case of Mathew Horan has served to highlight these dangers.
For there are parents all over this country who, through no fault of their own, had no idea until this week just what their young children could be subjected to simply by ‘playing’ on their smartphones.
They know now, however, and with that knowledge comes power: the power to change the system and keep our children safe.
This newspaper is therefore fully committed to continuing our campaign in the honest belief that to properly protect our children, nothing short of a minimum age limit for smartphone ownership will suffice.
Failure to do so will leave these innocent youngsters vulnerable to myriad social ills as well as other depraved offenders.