Suspended sentence for Dutchman in possession of child porn

A Dutch man’s name was put on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years and he was given a two-year suspended jail sentence this evening for having thousands of images of naked and semi-naked children on his home computers in West Cork.

Francis Daams (aged 56) from School Road, Durrus, Co Cork, was previously told by Judge Patrick J. Moran that it was a borderline case for a prison sentence and he adjourned the case on numerous occasions.

“I am conscious of the fact that his wife is very dependent on him she would suffer considerable hardship (if he was imprisoned),” he said.

Detective Garda Martin Hogan inspected the defendant’s home computer as recently as last Friday and he found evidence of more than 5,800 recently deleted files that could not be retrieved using garda forensic software that would usually be capable of retrieving such files.

Daams insisted yesterday that these files had absolutely nothing to do with child pornography but were related to maintenance work he was doing on his computer.

The judge noted the fact that gardaí found it suspicious but he accepted that Daams had not breached his bail in relation to use of his computer.

Sergeant Jerry McCarthy previously said that more than 11,000 images were found on the defendant’s computers when his home was searched on the day of Operation Amethyst, May 27, 2002.

Operation Amethyst was a national operation for the tracking down those downloading child pornography from American sites.