Killarney man jailed for possessing child pornography images

A KILLARNEY man who was caught in possession of thousands of child pornography images as a result of a Europol investigation has been jailed for two years.

Formerly of Galtymore Park, Drimnagh and now resident in Killarney, John O’Donoghue (38) also distributed illegal images and movies via email and a file sharing network. He admitted to gardai that he was addicted to looking at child pornography.

The court heard the defendant was a qualified engineer with no previous convictions. He was previously employed in the Motor Tax Office and had been living until recently in Dublin but had since moved home to Kerry.

Mr O’Donoghue pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the distribution of child pornography on dates between November and December 2009 and possession of child pornography in September 2012.

Judge Martin Nolan noted Mr O’Donoghue had been communicating online with “like-minded individuals”. “This is not a victimless crime because somewhere in the world there are actual children being abused,” said Judge Nolan.

On a laptop, gardaí found 23 sexually explicit child movies, one child exposure movie, 3,371 sexually explicit child images, 3,342 exposure images and 175 Hentai images. On a USB key gardai found 19 sexually explicit child movies, two child exposure movies as well as 281 sexually explicit child images and 243 child exposure images. The court heard the images ranged from babies to young teens.

Garda analysis of emails and chat logs also found evidence of the distribution of images to other email addresses.

Mr O’Donoghue initially attended voluntarily for interview in 2012 and admitted being a user of a website that was a meeting place for people with a sexual interest in boys.

Judge Nolan imposed a four year sentence and suspended the final two years.