Man faces child porn sentence five years on from offence

A FORMER teacher and table tennis coach is to be sentenced next week for possession of child pornography five-and-a-half years ago.

John O’Donoghue, 58, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a single count of possessing the pornographic material at his former home in Weaver’s Hall, Stepaside, Dublin 18, on March 27, 2012.

In Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, Garda Brian Davoren told Antonia Boyle BL, prosecuting, that gardaí searched the premises on foot of confidential information received in 2008. They retrieved a total of 2,500 images and 13 movie files of child pornography, contained on a computer, laptop, memory stick and two external hard drives.

The court heard that when O’Donoghue was arrested in December 2016 and shown the computers seized from his former home, he said: ‘It’s not my PC.’ When told about the images discovered by gardaí, he said he ‘wasn’t aware’ that they were on his equipment and added: ‘Look, I find this to be disgusting and I do not look at child pornography.’

O’Donoghue, of Leinster Square, Rathmines, Dublin, has four previous convictions of indecent assault of a young boy in 2013, for which he got a three-and-a-half year sentence with 18 months suspended.

Mary Rose Gearty SC, defending, said that through nobody’s fault, there had been a systemic delay in bringing this case to court, but that in the interim, O’Donoghue had taken significant steps to rehabilitate himself.

‘The man being sentenced today is not the man arrested in 2012, because he has since pleaded guilty, served a sentence and completed a Safer Lives programme on his release from prison,’ said Ms Gearty.

Judge Patricia Ryan adjourned the case for sentencing next Friday.