Man who admitted possessing and distributing child abuse videos as a teenager remanded for sentencing

A man who admitted possessing and distributing videos and images of children being raped by adult men, as well as young children engaging in sex acts with one another, has been remanded on bail for sentencing.
The man, who was nine days short of his 18th birthday when the explicit child sexual abuse material was seized by gardaí, cannot be named due to reporting restrictions.
Prosecuting barrister John O’Sullivan flagged with the court that the Director of Public Prosecutions could see “no basis” as to why the man should not be identified, but he said the question of the man’s anonymity would be decided at his sentencing hearing, which was scheduled for November 7th.
The 22-year old man appeared before Limerick Circuit Criminal Court on Thursday evening which heard evidence of the offences he had pleaded guilty to.
The court heard the man had previously admitted two offences under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, including that he did “distribute child pornography” on March 28th 2020, and that he was in “possession of child pornography” on June 4th 2020.
Specially trained forensic gardaí discovered the extremely explicit illegal material on a mobile phone and two laptops owned by the defendant. The devices were seized during a search of a house run by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, in which the defendant was residing, on June 4th, 2020.
The court heard that in 2018 the defendant, then aged 16, had been placed in Tulsa accommodation with other young adults after his mother had expressed concerns about her son in respect of alleged inappropriate sexual behaviour.
The defendant later disclosed to a school guidance counsellor that he was “sexually aroused” by young boys, said Mr O’Sullivan.
Tusla was alerted and in turn the agency alerted gardaí, who obtained a search warrant and conducted a search of the property where the defendant was staying.
The court heard that gardaí discovered 186 videos and 226 images of the most graphic and explicit child rape and sexual abuse on the defendant’s mobile phone.
Gardaí classified all 186 videos as “category one” material, meaning the videos were of the utmost gravity.
The defendant was arrested by gardaí when he went to a Garda station by appointment on February 22nd, 2021. He initially denied distributing the material and said he had shared videos only of himself, but he eventually entered guilty pleas at the outset of the prosecution’s case against him.
A probation report completed last July flagged the defendant as being at risk of reoffending.
Barrister Antoinette Simon, defending,
submitted that whatever sentence was imposed, she believed the defendant would require “long-term consistent therapeutic interventions” to try to “reduce the risk” of him reoffending.
The maximum sentences open to the court is one of 14 years on the distribution offence and five years on the possession offence.