Six years for sex-offence former sergeant

A former garda sergeant who attempted to pay prostitutes to get children as young as five for sex a year after he had been released for a similar offence has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Kieran O’Halloran (aged 48) offered two prostitutes up to €10,000 to source the children and asked one to organise "three or four children in a hotel room" for him to have sex with. He also asked one to get him a picture of a new-born baby with their genitals on view.

O’Halloran pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to inciting the women "to organise or knowingly facilitate the use of a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation" in October 2005 and April 2006.

Gardaí began investigating him after one of the prostitutes tipped them off because she was disgusted by the requests.

O’Halloran of Liffey Court, Clane, County Kildare and Westminister Park, Foxrock was jailed for three years on 2003 for an almost identical offence and a 20-year post-release supervision order was also imposed.

Judge Katherine Delahunt suspended the last 15 months of the sentence on condition that he engage with the probation service for those 15 months upon his release from prison.

She said she had taken into account the fact that he was still under post-release supervision as per his previous conviction and he was registered as a sex offender.

She noted that there was no evidence that O’Halloran had ever abused a child and accepted that he had been abused himself when he was young, had low self-esteem and had a history of depression and alcoholism.

Judge Delahunt noted submissions by defence counsel, Mr Lúan O’Braonáin SC, that the "requests were unreal" that he had been unemployed at the time and had no chance of paying the fees he had indicated.

Mr O’Braonáin had also pointed out that as O’Halloran had pleaded guilty to incitement it did not imply that he had any intention of actually sexually assault children. He claimed that O’Halloran had said these things to "get a reaction".