Judge cites need for greater deterrence in child porn cases as man jailed

By Jessica Magee and Sonya McLean

A Circuit Court judge has said the need for deterrence has never been greater when it comes to dealing with cases of child pornography.

Judge Melanie Greally today jailed Peter McDonagh (29) for two and half years after he was caught in possession of almost 1,000 images of child pornography depicting children as young as two years old.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard at a sentence hearing last June that out of the 980 images found on McDonagh's mobile phones, more than half contained extreme images of children engaged in or witnessing explicit sexual activity.

Garda Des McNally told Maddy Grant BL, prosecuting, at that hearing, that gardaí were initially alerted to the crime by Canadian authorities.

The National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre in Canada had identified images of three girls aged under 10 involved in a sex act with an adult.

An IP address and subscriber details were traced to McDonagh who had obtained the child pornography using his Samsung mobile phone.

McDonagh, of of St Lawrence's Road, Clontarf, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing the images at his home on January 18, 2017.

Judge Greally said that the production of these images “necessitates the abuse of children” and that images were becoming more extreme and the sharing of them more prevalent given how easily they can be accessed.

“The need for deterrence could never be greater,” the judge said before she acknowledged that although the maximum jail term available for the offence was five years, any post release supervision order must also come within that five year term.

She noted that a report from The Probation Service put McDonagh at high risk of offending and described the man as having shown remorse but having “limited insight” into the affect his crime had on children.

She jailed McDonagh for two and half years and imposed a two and half year post release supervision.

The judge ordered that McDonagh remain under the supervision of The Probation Service for those two and half years and complete all programmes as directed by them, including a sex offenders and victim awareness programmes.

Judge Greally also ordered that McDonagh “abide by all The Probation Service's directions in relation to his use of social media platforms” after asking Ms Grant if there were any other conditions that could be imposed to reduce McDonagh's risk of re-offending.

“If you fail to comply with the post release supervision order, that in itself is an additional crime which can result in a 12 month jail term,” the judge told McDonagh.

Judge Greally told Anne Marie Lawlor SC, defending, that she “significantly” considered McDonagh's psychiatric history when considering the appropriate sentence.

She made reference to a report which indicated that he had many “emotionally damaging” incidents in his childhood and was diagnosed with both recurrent depressive and adult personality disorder.