Man who harassed Sharon gets three years
A MAN who harassed RTÉ newsreader Sharon Ní Bheoláin and who was found with child abuse images has been jailed for three years.
The harassment involved posting more than 30 photoshopped images of Ms Ní Bheoláin to a pornographic website which was reachable through a Google search of her name. Conor O’Hora had cut images of Ms Ní Bheoláin’s face from the RTÉ Guide and superimposed them on images of women taken from sexually explicit websites.
The abuse image charges involved the possession of roughly 100 images of children in sexual positions. Passing sentence on O’Hora, 41, yesterday, Judge Martin Nolan condemned his ‘insidious form of harassment’ to Ms Ní Bheoláin and ‘debasing behaviour’. He handed down a four-anda-half year sentence with the final 18 months suspended.
‘The information on her will be out there forever,’ said the judge, who also ordered O’Hora not to seek to contact Ms Ní Bheoláin in any way. ‘I’ve no doubt it caused considerable distress to the complainant and her family. He (O’Hora) must have known that. It was reprehensible and he should be thoroughly ashamed,’ said Judge Nolan.
The judge described the pornographic images and conversations as ‘sordid and pretty disgusting’.
Conor O’Hora, of Heather Walk, Portmarnock, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to harassing Ms Ní Bheoláin between March 27, 2013 and January 7, 2014. He also pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing child abuse images on a mobile phone and on a computer hard drive at Station Road, Portmarnock, on February 18, 2014.
The court heard that the harassment involved posting more than 30 modified sexually explicit images, and 40 sexually explicit and violent online conversations between O’Hora and a co-accused. Some of the online discussions related to Ms Ní Bheoláin, while others related to three identified children. The final 18 months of the sentence were suspended on the basis of O’Hora’s mitigation, including the hope for his reform and the steps he has already taken towards rehabilitation.
Detective Garda Pádraig Hanley told Kerida Naidoo SC, prosecuting, that gardaí were alerted after modified images of Ms Ní Bheoláin were found online when her name was put into Google.
Using the account name ‘whoresluttramp’, O’Hora uploaded 32 images to a website. The images were active from March 27, 2013, until the account was closed at the request of gardaí on January 17, 2014.
O’Hora’s home was searched, his computer and mobile phone were seized and he was arrested by gardaí. Over 40 images of explicit child abuse in the most serious category were found on O’Hora’s laptop, with a further 53 images on his iPhone, depicting children from the ages of eight to 17.
Many of the pictures were of three identified children and had been taken from Facebook accounts and doctored to form pornographic images.
O’Hora, who is currently studying mathematics with the Open University, told gardaí: ‘It’s not something I’m proud of, it’s a fantasy thing. It’s ridiculous to think she would have any interest in me.’ He said that he had put the images online just so that other people around the world could ‘get a jolly out of her’.