College IT network engineer uploaded child abuse videos, court hears
Tom Tuite
A National College of Ireland network engineer uploaded videos to the Kik social media app featuring children, as young as eight, sexually abused by men, a court heard.
Steve Jennings, 34, of Gleann Petit Park, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child sex abuse materials from February 15-20th, 2024. The offences are punishable by 5 and 14 year sentences, respectively.
Detective Garda David Mead, with the Protective Services Unit for Westmeath and Meath, agreed with prosecutor Cathal Ó Braonáin BL that gardaí received a notification from the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It concerned a Kik profile linked to a specific email account.
Judge Keenan Johnson heard at Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court that the accused uploaded child sex abuse videos to Kik 15 times over the five days.
The first clip, posted twice, lasted 19 seconds and showed an adult male performing a sex act on an eight-year-old girl. The second clip was 27 seconds, and again featured a girl of the same age being raped, and the same clip was shared on Kik two more times.
There was a two-second video of a child aged about 12 being abused by a man, and it was uploaded two other times.
Another 37-second video uploaded four times of a child performing a sex act.
A 14-second clip of a child, thought to be aged nine, while the final video was 20 seconds, with a 13-year-old girl exposed.
The married IT specialist's home was searched, and gardaí seized his devices, but the offending material was only on his phone.
He informed gardaí that he began using adult pornography and from there encountered child sex abuse material of children aged 10 – 12.
He used chat rooms to share 500 – 1,000 images or videos, mainly adult pornography.
However, Detective Garda Mead explained that there would have been one child sex abuse video for every five uploaded videos. He had also engaged in about 1,000 exchanges of explicit messages over the same five days and maintained that he preferred teens.
The accused had maintained that he had to upload material to stay in a chat group.
Sentencing was adjourned for a Probation Service risk assessment until a date in May. Jennings, who is on bail, had no prior convictions and furnished the judge with a letter of apology.
The court heard he has been attending psychotherapy at the Thinkwell Clinic and had a trauma background from being abused twice as a young child and being groomed in his mid-teens by an American woman online who posted pictures of him on various internet sites.
John Hayden SC, defending, said his client became involved in this during the Covid lockdown and was drawn into the activity, but never paid for the material.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112.
