Vulnerable adult in court for sexually exploiting child online
The man pleaded guilty at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court.
A Mayo man sexually exploited a child who he encountered while playing computer games online.
The 30-year-old man pleaded guilty at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court to the use of community technology to facilitate sexual exploitation of a child. The offence occurred on March 30, 2019, with Gardai alerted to the matter by police in the UK.
The mother of a nine-year-old boy had contacted the authorities after she discovered inappropriate messages on Facebook between the guilty party and her child.
Det Gda William Grant said the man met the child while playing the game Fortnite online. Their conversations moved to Facebook Messenger when the child managed to access his mother’s account and sexually explicit images were shared between them. The man's IP address was used to trace his home address and a search warrant was obtained. Two mobile phones were seized and communications between the child and the 30-year-old man were discovered. Contained within the messages were 26 images, two videos and an audio file. Eleven of the images were of a child’s genitalia.
When questioned by Gardaí, the guilty party admitted to being sexually attracted to children and to manipulating a child to obtain pictures of the child’s penis.
Det Gda Grant said the photos were at the lower end of the scale.
Defending barrister Diarmuid Connolly said his client lives with his parents and is a vulnerable individual. He was born prematurely and suffered two brain hemorrhages which essentially caused brain damage. The accused has cerebral palsy, Aspergers, ADHD, and mild learning difficulties.
A psychological report determined that the trauma he suffered at birth has led to paedophilic and paraphilic tendencies. The man has the "body of an adult but the mind of a teenager or child". He has an "extraordinary" interest in the children’s voices and sounds and is attracted to chuckling, hiccupping, and burping.
The psychologist's report said the man should not have access in any circumstances to a child under the age of 13.
Giving evidence in court, the man’s mother said she hopes her son may be placed in a supervised residential setting. Funding is currently available for him to receive specialised psychological treatment from the HSE but does not extend beyond that.
The man lives a "solitary and lonely existence" and before this offence his life was lived primarily online.
Judge Eoin Garavan said he agreed with the psychological report that the accused was "utterly unsuitable" for prison.
Imposing a one-year suspended sentence, Judge Garavan recommended that the HSE continue to provide treatment, including residential care. He also ruled that the guilty party’s online activity be monitored at all times and that all devices in his home should be made available to Gardaí if requested. He further ordered the man to have no unsupervised access to children or access to places where children gather.
