Scottish ex-policeman jailed on child porn charge

A former Scottish policeman who distributed child pornographic images over the internet has been jailed for three years by Judge Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Gordon Bowers, aged 49, with an address at Pembroke Square, Grand Canal Street, Dublin 4, but originally from Glasgow, pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography on August 13 and October 9, 2001, and the possession of child pornography on March 22, 2002.

He was traced to Dublin by the authorities in the US after using his credit card to purchase a number of child pornographic images over the internet.

Bowers was arrested at his Dublin apartment when gardaí seized various computer equipment containing 1,244 images and 76 movies involving naked and partially-clothed children from infant age up to 16 engaged in sexual activities with adults.

They also found evidence that he had engaged in up to 3,000 chat room sessions with people Judge Hogan described as "like-minded" and had distributed eight images to individuals he had been communicating with.

Officers from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation seized a laptop computer, various hard drives, 18 floppy discs and assorted compact discs when they raided his premises.

Judge Hogan, who viewed some of the images on a laptop in court, refused an application by counsel for Bowers to adjourn the sentence because he was receiving counselling in the Granada Institute and said on balance it deserved a custodial sentence.

He said: "The mitigating factors in this case are that he fully cooperated with the gardaí and readily handed over the results of his activities in the form of floppy discs and other copies of the illegal pornographic materials he had accumulated. He also pleaded guilty.

"However, there is one question that is constant in my mind and that is how could a person contribute to and participate in what is nothing more that the irretrievable loss of innocence of young, vulnerable children for his own sense of voyeurism and sexual gratification.

"He then proceeded to distribute material to enable others to continue in the same vain. I must bear in mind that these images and movies were of very young children and in two of the cases I have seen the children were no more than above infant age."

Detective Garda Geraldine McGoldrick told Mr Vincent Henaghan BL, prosecuting, that when Bowers was interviewed he gave the gardaí details of how he accessed the material and passwords he would use to gain entry to websites. He admitted everything put to him by officers.

Det Gda McGoldrick said Bowers had been in the Merchant Navy and had spent eight years in the Scottish police force.

When he left he got a masters degree in business studies and came to Ireland over five years ago to work as a management consultant.

His wife, Ann Bowers, who addressed the court on her husband’s behalf, remained in Scotland to complete her service with the Scottish Health Service but moved over to Dublin in 2001 because she sensed her husband had emotionally changed.

She told Judge Hogan that when she came over here, Bowers’ spirit was gone and he was suffering severely from depression. She said he "wasn’t living, he was surviving".

Mr Sean Gillane BL, for Bowers, said his client’s job prospects diminished after moving to Dublin and he was alone in a foreign country. He became housebound and began spending his days working on his computer and communicating with other people in chat rooms.

Mr Gillane said Bowers found "he had touched the devil and couldn’t get let go".

He had also planned to commit suicide but the intervention of one officer, who spoke to him over the phone, prevented him from doing so.

Counsel said Bowers and his wife had commenced a lengthy and intensive course of counselling at the Granada Institute and they now placed him at the lower end of the scale in terms of reoffending.

Judge Hogan imposed three concurrent sentences of three-years but suspended the last one for a period of seven years.

He placed Bowers’ name on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.