Man who viewed child abuse walks free

A MAN who viewed children being abused online over a five-year period has escaped a jail sentence.

Philip Nolan, 30, was only caught after Australian investigators alerted gardaí, via Interpol, about his activity online.

He pleaded guilty to possession of child abuse images in the form of text stories, images and videos at his home on May 4, 2011. The court heard he first started looking at the images in 2006 and continued to do so until 2011. Three of the images were at the most serious category.

Gardaí also found ‘hentai’ images, which are Japanese manga-style cartoons, depicting children at the age of five being abused.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that following a tip-off from authorities in Queensland, gardaí traced the IP address to Nolan’s home. During a search of the address in May 2011, they seized two laptops, a memory stick and a hard drive.

More than five years later, in January 2017, gardaí carried out a forensic examination of these items and found a total of 106 files containing images of child abuse, including videos and text stories.

Nolan, of Ambervale Estate, Cookstown, Tallaght, Dublin 24, was 18 years old when he began to look up child abuse images in 2006, and he continued to do so until 2011.

In relation to the delay in taking the case, the court heard that it was part of a larger Garda operation, and that the more serious cases had to be prioritised.

The five-year delay was also caused by a shortage of forensic analysts, Detective Garda Donagh Mannix told the court.

The court heard Nolan had a low risk of reoffending, had no previous convictions, and had not come to Garda attention since.

Judge Pauline Codd suspended a sentence of two and a half years on condition that Nolan attend a sexual-offenders treatment programme.