Former Rose of Tralee escort caught sharing ‘horrific’ child porn

A REQUEST for help from Welsh police to gardaí over a child pornography investigation led to the conviction of a former Rose of Tralee escort.

Timothy ‘Tim’ Lynch (34), who was an escort at the famous Kerry festival a decade ago, was jailed for 18 months after he pleaded guilty before Cork Circuit Criminal Court to the distribution of vile images of child pornography.

Judge Seán O Donnabháin was told that some of the images involved depicted adults engaged in sexual acts with infants. Lynch, of Oliver’s Place, Kanturk, Co Cork, pleaded guilty to a total of four charges.

These included one count of possessing child pornography and three counts of distributing such material.

The charges all related to dates in 2015 at the defendant’s home at River Valley, Mallow, Co Cork. Judge O Donnabháin was told the investigation began when Welsh police contacted gardaí in early 2015 for help over a matter involving a UK national.

Welsh police were investigating a suspected child pornography matter with the UK national having apparently been in contact with up to 40 different individuals. This was done via an anonymous phone app called Kik.

Gardaí, in turn, were able to identify Lynch after tracing an email used to create a special online account in the name of a user called ‘Horny 2611’. Detectives, on foot of a warrant, raided the defendant’s north Cork home in April 2015.

The defendant’s phone was seized and sent for analysis. It determined that more than 200 images were on the device – with a garda admitting that the nature of some of the images involved was absolutely horrific.

Gardaí were able to determine that Lynch had shared 13 images with others on dates between February and April 2015. Lynch was a former Rose of Tralee escort who now lived with his family.

Judge O Donnabháin was told that Lynch pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, co-operated fully with gardaí, was deeply remorseful and had voluntarily gone for specialist counselling. Judge O Donnabháin imposed a threeyear prison sentence but agreed to suspend the final 18 months in light of the defendant’s plea and co-operation with gardaí.

The defendant’s phone was seized for analysis... more than 200 images were on the device