Man who had over 5,000 child sexual abuse images is jailed for nine months

NINE months in jail was prescribed in Wexford Circuit Court for a 31-year-old Gorey man found to have thousands of child sexual abuse files on a lap-top.

Landscape worker Aaron Archer of 29 Springdale Apartments, Clonattin Village, admitted the offence. The illicit material was found on analysis of a Lenovo lap-top computer seized by gardaí who searched his home on May 18 in 2021.

Unsettling details of the images were given to Judge James McCourt by Detective Garda Sharon Dempsey during a sentencing hearing. The store included over 5,000 images depicting child sexual abuse involving boys and girls under the age of 10.

The court was told that Archer had been living with his mother and that he had dabbled with drugs. He had no previous convictions and had not come to garda attention since the raid in Clonattin almost three years ago.

Defence barrister Jordan Fletcher accepted that his client had been reliant on cannabis and porn at the time of the offence. Counsel referred to the negative impact in childhood of Archer’s alcoholic father, described as “not a particularly nice man”.

Mr Jordan suggested that the defendant now accepted that the content on his lap-top was disgusting and disturbing.

Judge James McCourt said he had to consider the defenceless child victims in this case.

Some of the material found on the computer was in the second most severe of the five categories by which such images are assessed, he noted. Only activity involving bestiality is rated worse.

However, the court accepted that Archer had taken therapy and that he had shown remorse and understanding of his crime.

A two year prison sentence was recorded, with the closing 15 months suspended. The offender agreed to take part in the Safer Lives programme or an equivalent on his release, while remaining drug and drink free.