Seven-year delay in child porn case
Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said: “It is an altogether exceptional case and I propose to give the accused the benefit of the Probation Act.”
The judge said that because the matter had come before Cork Circuit Criminal Court, rather than being dealt with at district court level, there would be a record of the offence. The defendant was also required to enter a bond to be of good behaviour for the next 12 months.
Gavin Hurley, aged 39, pleaded guilty to a charge of knowingly having child pornography at 69A Sunday’s Well Rd, Cork, on November 9, 2010.
Detective Sergeant Denis Lynch was asked by the judge to explain the delay in bringing the case. The detective said there was an issue with all of these type of cases. In other cases, it has been explained that the delay arose out of resources in the section dealing with the forensic examination of computers based in Dublin.
Judge Ó Donnabháin said such files were found years ago and that Hurley had been waiting for a number of years.
Siobhán Lankford, defending, said: “All of these cases are being delayed at present. Mr Hurley took steps immediately to address the issue. It is a system’s failure on the part of the state.”
Judge Ó Donnabháin said: “I know Ireland is wonderful for bureaucracy but we cannot explain everything by system’s failure. Someone has to put their head on the block.”
The judge accepted that whoever was at fault for the delay, it was not caused in any way by Hurley.
Det Sgt Lynch said five movie files were found on Hurley’s computer when gardaí called to his home in 2010. He gave gardaí the necessary passwords to access his computer and admitted the offending material was there.
Children in the clips were witnessing or engaged in sexual activities and their genital or anal regions were exposed.
Hurley had no previous convictions and none since. He has left Ireland and has not come to the adverse notice of police in the UK, where he works.
Ms Lankford said Hurley had co-operated fully from the beginning, and had attended for treatment in Ireland and in the UK with a clinical psychologist. She said the images were at the lower end of the scale in seriousness.
“He attended conscientiously over time for treatment,” she said. “He has been subject to a lot of stress and difficulty. He has had personal difficulties coming to terms with this. He finds himself almost eight years on facing this charge. An amount of stress and anxiety was caused by delay, which is something the court must take into consideration.”
Judge Ó Donnabháin said child pornography is a serious issue. He said the delay in bringing the case was inexcusable and putting it down to system’s failure was not acceptable. “To know he was going to be prosecuted seven or eight years ago, it is intolerable. I have to be particularly aware of that.”
Taking all factors into consideration, including the low risk of reoffending, the judge described the case as exceptional and applied the Probation of Offenders Act.
