Psychiatric nurse jailed for child sexual exploitation

A Kerry-born psychiatric nurse who made video tapes of himself engaged in sexual activities with children from the ages of four to 13 has been jailed for six years by Judge Des Hogan.

Patrick Finbar Murphy fuelled the grandson of a couple he befriended with eight bottles of Smirnoff Ice and recorded himself massaging the young boy's body with cream and masturbating him as they both lay naked on a bed.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that the video also showed the young boy going to the toilet at one point and he could be heard getting sick.

Murphy also used a camcorder to film himself playing with a seven-year-old girl and two brothers, aged four and six, exposing their private parts to the camera as he baby-sat the three children in Co Sligo.

Murphy (58), from Lower Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, but originally from Killarney admitted three counts of using a child for sexual exploitation on camcorder cassettes, video discs and digital discs at addresses in Dublin and Sligo between June 1, 1999, and October 31, 2001.

He also pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing child pornography on October 31, 2001.

These included two magazines entitled Oliver and Daniel and computer discs and printouts with images of children.

Judge Hogan said that it was the type of serious offence that warranted a custodial sentence and because none of the injured parties were willing to prepare victim impact reports demonstrated to him they were too traumatised to relive their experiences.

"You connived your way into the trust and affection of the families of these children, who are the unfortunate victims," Judge Hogan told Murphy.

"Under the guise of acts of kindness you breached that trust in pursuance of your own base motives and sexual gratification and I have no doubt that this will have a lasting affect on the children involved and their parents.

"I have read the Book of Evidence and it makes for dismal and harrowing reading. I am aware you yourself have had an unhappy life but however scarred you must be yourself as a result of your upbringing, I am quite satisfied you knew what you were doing was wrong".

Detective Garda Liam Maher told Mr Des Zaidan BL, prosecuting, that Murphy was convicted of possessing indecent photographs in London and jailed for four months in 1995.

The following year he was jailed for 18 months on three charges of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy. He served only nine months.

Murphy befriended a couple from the West of Ireland in London and they had four children. Two of them moved back to Sligo and when Murphy returned home he often visited them.

The families trusted him so much that he often brought the 13-year-old son of one couple to Dublin where he filmed the pair of them engaging in sexual activity.

He visited the family of the seven-year-old girl in Sligo and often baby-sat for her and two brothers, who were the children of friends of the girl's mother.

Det Gda Maher told Mr Zaidan that he obtained a warrant in October, 2001, to search Murphy's flat on foot of confidential information he received from England.

Gardai seized a video, a computer, a camcorder and a digital camera. They found 307 videos but only three of them, plus four camcorder cassettes, contained material of a pornographic nature.

They also found 22 images on the computer's hard-drive and 70 photographs with images of young children half-naked. Some of the videos contained children on a beach, which seemed like they had been taken on holiday. They also found two child pornography magazines.

Murphy was taken to Kilkenny garda station where he admitted the material was his and later identified the children in the videos when he was questioned in Arbour Hill prison.

Murphy said that he bought the magazines about 20 years ago, while in Amsterdam. He added he had never been interested in women and couldn't explain his fascination with young boys. He told gardai: "I know what I'm doing is not normal but I can't help myself."

Det Gda Maher said that all the children were extremely traumatised from what happened and none could talk about it. They were so devastated that they couldn't even prepare victim impact reports.

Murphy alleged in his statement that he was sexually abused on a weekly basis by a brother while he was at St Patrick's Industrial School in Cork in the 1950s. He had spent his formative years in an orphanage in Cappoquin, Co Waterford.

He returned to the school when he was 20 with the intention of killing the brother only to learn he was already dead.

He later qualified as a psychiatric nurse and went to work in Our Lady's Psychiatric Hospital in Cork but he left in 1975 after "some incident".

He followed up by working in two orphanages in Waterford and in Cappoquin he alleged that a nun tried to initiate sexual activities with him.

After that he moved to London where he again worked as a psychiatric nurse but later quit because of ill-health and worked in a bar in Wembley before returning to Ireland in 1997.

Mr George Birmingham SC, for Murphy, pleaded with Judge Hogan for leniency because his client was making the videos for his "own, perverted purposes" and was not selling or distributing them.

Mr Birmingham said the sexual offences committed on the tapes were also at the lower end of scale. He added that Murphy pleaded guilty at the earliest possible stage and cooperated with the gardai and he was entitled to credit for that.