Middle-aged father caught with 1,500 child porn images

A 43-year-old seperated father was caught with more than 1,500 child pornography images while on a FÁS course, a court heard today.

Anthony Mullane (aged 43), from Lisreedy, Loughill, Co. Limerick pleaded guilty at Limerick Circuit Court to one count of possession of images at his home on July 12, 2002.

The court heard that the 43-year-old was downloading images on discs and bringing them home and printing them out.

When gardaí carried out the search, they took away three computers, two hard drives, floppy discs and two video VHS tapes, as well as 34 pages of print outs depicting children in sexual poses.

There was also some text found in relation to internet site addresses that could be accessed for child porn, the court heard.

The items seized were examined by Detective Garda Liam Coogan of the Computer Crime Investigation unit, who told Limerick Circuit Court there was a total of 1,538 images of child pornography in all.

The images were of children involved in sexual acts with adults and from his experience of examining over 300 computers, this case would fall into the upper half in terms of seriousness, he said.

During his arrest Mr Mullane - who had no previous convictions - told gardaí he would be pleading guilty to the offences which he admitted.

He also said that the items were for his own use and that he was not connected to any network. His defence counsel Brian McInerney, (BL), said his client had no explanation for what he had done and asked Judge Carroll Moran to take into account the guilty plea and Mr Mullane's unblemished record prior to this incident.

The court heard that the accused - who was left in a coma after a very serious accident a few years ago - has already been told that he is to have no contact with his wife or children.

Judge Moran said he did not accept that the defendant had no explanation for what he did and added that the images he had been shown in court ranged between hard and soft porn.

The judge asked for a probation report and adjouned sentencing until February 4 next.