Tesco ban for lewd acts

A Dublin man has been told he must stay out of all Tesco stores after he masturbated in public in the vicinity of children at a Tesco store in Tralee two nights in a row in 2013.

Iosach O’Riain, aged 26, of Mount Eagle Rise, Leopardstown Heights, Dublin 18, pleaded guilty to two charges of “outraging public decency”. The charge was contrary to common law.

At the sentencing hearing yesterday the judge said the acts were “lewd in the extreme”.

At Tesco, Manor West, Tralee, “a public place and within view of members of the public” , he had masturbated in public on June 26 and June 27, 2013, according to charge.

At the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee yesterday, Garda Lynda Brosnan said security called her to the store on June 26, 2013, at around 9.20pm.

A large crowd were in the store “and children and young families were in the vicinity”. CCTV footage showed a man she later identified as O’Riain “walking around the store, his hands in his pocket,”Garda Brosnan said.

He was viewing young children “and masturbating in close proximity to the children”, the garda said.

The following evening she went to the store and observed O’Riain for several minutes. “All the time he had his hands in his pocket. He was masturbating while viewing young children at the same time,” Garda Brosnan said.

He seemed to follow two young females, the garda said.

At one stage, he lay on the floor to look under a shelf. Garda Brosnan also said she “clearly saw” him masturbating in the children’s clothing section.

Arrested and cautioned, he made admissions but said he was only looking at women.

“Children do not attract me. Women arouse me,” O’Riain told the garda.

The court was told O’Riain had been convicted at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 2012 of sexual assault of a child. He had received two years’ imprisonment, 14 months of which were suspended on his own bond. He was released from Wheatfield in June 2013.

John O’Sullivan, defending, said O’Riain had co-operated and had “religiously observed” the terms of his bail since his arrest in 2013 — this included staying away from Tesco stores and he was also involved in a One in Four programme for sexual offenders

Judge Thomas E O’Donnell put back sentencing for 12 months and directed a report in a year from One in Four, a probation report and that he stay out of Tesco stores and attend his weekly counselling programme.