Paedophile forced girls (9) to send him sex pictures
Families’ worst nightmares as predator contacted children through devices bought with Communion money
A DUBLIN man coerced nine-yearold girls to send sexually graphic pictures and videos of themselves from devices they had bought with their Communion money, a court has heard.
Matthew Horan (26) also threatened to share an 11-year-old girl’s nude images to her social media if she didn’t send him more graphic photos.
He used Skype, Snapchat, Instagram and Kik to send and receive child porn images from six iden- tified child users in Ireland and a further nine unidentified children.
Horan, of St John’s Crescent, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty to 11 sample charges from a total of 46. An examination of his computer found recorded Skype calls between him and two nine-year-old girls engaging in graphic sexual acts.
Detective Garda David Connolly told the court that the parents of girls said they “felt sick to the pit of our stomachs”. They said their children had bought the devices with their Communion money to communicate with friends.
Judge Martin Nolan will sentence Horan on Friday.
A DUBLIN man coerced nineyear-old girls to send sexually graphic pictures and video of themselves from devices they bought with their Communion money, a court has heard.
Matthew Horan (26) used Skype, Snapchat, Instagram and Kik, an anonymous instant messaging application, to send and receive child porn images from six identified child users in Ireland and a further nine children elsewhere in the world.
A forensic examination of Horan’s computer uncovered recorded Skype calls between him and two nine-year-old girls, both individually and together. The recordings included footage of these girls engaging in graphic sexual acts.
Horan also engaged in sexually explicit text conversations with the girls, during which there would be an exchange of photos.
He also threatened to share an 11-year-old girl’s nude images to her social media if she didn’t send him more graphic photos. The girl begged him to leave her alone, but he persisted and demanded more pictures, even after she said she would take her own life.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Horan would use Kik to share child porn images and videos with unidentified users from around the world.
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 children through Snapchat and Instagram in the
State on dates between May 21,
2015 and July 7, 2016.
He further pleaded guilty to possessing child porn on a Sony mobile phone at his home on July 7, 2016.
He has no previous convictions. Judge Martin Nolan adjourned the case to Friday and said he intended to sentence Horan then. Detective Garda David Connolly told Lorcan Staines BL, prosecuting, that the parents of the then nine-year-old girls from the Skype recordings expressed their “absolute shock” when they found out about the exchanges with Horan. They said they “felt sick to the pit of our stomachs” and felt they failed to protect their daughters. They said their children were targeted by an online predator while using phones and a tablet they had bought with their Communion money to communicate with friends, watch dance videos or cartoons online. One girl’s mother said when she found out her daughter had been targeted by an online predator pretending to be a child, “my body started to shake, my blood started to boil”. Det Gda Connolly told Mr
Staines that US authorities contacted gardaí about a Gmail account being used to share child porn. Investigators eventually tracked the Gmail account to Horan and gardaí searched his address. They seized a number of devices. In a forensic investigation that took more than a year, gardaí discovered thousands of images and videos of child porn. Some of these involved young babies.
Horan also engaged in graphic text exchanges with the child users in which he would describe violent sexual acts.
Det Gda Connolly told Mr Staines that forensic experts also found Skype conversations between Horan and an individual who is currently under investigation and who has a nine-year-old daughter. Horan and this man shared fantasies about the young girl.
Det Gda Connolly agreed with Patrick Gageby SC, defending, that his client had a closed existence with incessant activity on the internet. He further agreed that Horan had never established physical contact with any of the children and there was no evidence of commercial gain.
Mr Gageby said his client was a perpetual loner who was on the autism spectrum. He said the death of his mother when he was aged three had an effect on his upbringing. He said that a psychological report stated that “fixated interests of people on the autism spectrum often functions as a way of reducing stress”. He said Horan lived a dingy existence and that since his Leaving Cert in 2009 he had done nothing except be at home on the computer.