Man who admitted to gardaí that he viewed child porn for five years avoids jail

Two and a half year sentence fully suspended as judge takes man's own history of abuse into account

Ciaran Moore (63) pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to knowingly being in possession of child pornography. Picture: Collins Courts

A man who admitted to gardaí he had been viewing child pornography for five years has received a fully suspended sentence.

Ciaran Moore (63) told gardaí that he had been the victim of sexual abuse as a child himself but said he had never done anything to any child.

Moore, of Pecks Lane, Castleknock, Dublin 15, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to knowingly being in possession of child pornography on November 30, 2016.

He has been registered as a sexual offender since he entered pleas of guilty. He has no previous convictions and has not come to Garda attention before or since.

Passing sentence on Thursday, Judge Melanie Greally said Moore has been diagnosed with a form of motor neurone disease and his condition is at this point said to be stable.

Judge Greally said Moore received a settlement in relation to his own abuse and “a very large proportion” was donated to charitable concerns, including to children's charities.

She said the court “can infer he is not a man who is indifferent to the welfare and suffering of children” and it is “somewhat ironic” that the content of this case contains “a significant volume” of images of children aged between one and 10.

Judge Greally said that generally the volume of the material in this case, the content of it and there being sharing of material involved in the case would necessitate a custodial sentence. 

She said that she was conscious of Moore's own history of abuse and his deteriorating health.

The judge said she was of the view that based on the mitigating factors and in particular those two elements, it is a case where the fact of his registration as a sex offender and the shame that has brought “meets the objective of general deterrence”.

Judge Greally sentenced Moore to two-and-a-half years imprisonment, but suspended the entirety of the sentence on strict conditions including that he not have any unsupervised access to children and that his daughter continues to monitor his use of electronic devices.

At a previous hearing Detective Garda Brendan O'Hora told John Byrne BL, prosecuting, that gardaí were alerted to the posting of two images of child pornography on a legitimate image hosting and file sharing website in July 2016.

The IP address associated with the uploading of these images was traced back to Moore and in November 2016, his home was searched.

Moore was at home at the time, along with his wife, and made immediate admissions to gardaí and identified those devices he used when viewing child pornography.

Det Gda O'Hora said Moore told gardaí he had a problem with looking at child pornography “for possibly five years” and insisted that he never printed anything out, but rather viewed it online. 

Moore was arrested in May 2019 after the four devices were forensically analysed. He again made full admissions. 

Det Gda Michael Fitzgerald told Mr Byrne that 536 images and 35 movie files of child pornography were found on the four devices. He acknowledged that there were some duplication of files.

He analysed the material and found that a number of images showed children aged between one and 14 years old engaged in or witnessing sexual activity.

A number of video files showed girls aged between six and 10 years old engaged in penetrative sex, while the remainder showed children of similar ages with their genital or anal region exposed to the camera.