Corkman had almost 2,000 child abuse images, many 'of a serious nature', court told

Judge Dara Hayes said he would consider the evidence in the case and finalise it on February 8 at Cork Circuit Criminal Court. File photo: iStock

A 36-year-old Cork man who was caught with a large quantity of child abuse images – some of the images in the most serious category – will be sentenced on Tuesday.

Judge Dara Hayes said he would consider the evidence in the case and finalise it on February 8 at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Jamie Healy of Tivoli Woods, Cork, pleaded guilty to having the child pornography at a property at Templeacre Avenue, Gurranabraher, Cork, over three years ago on October 22, 2018.

The charges specified that there were 1,925 files seized consisting of 1,834 images and 91 movie files. Detective Garda Pat Barry said gardaí were notified of an IP address being used at the address at Templeacre Avenue. That notification came from the online child exploitation unit and that a warrant was obtained to search his house.

“The only person at the house was Jamie Healy. He brought us into the house and it was searched for any device capable of holding this material. He denied at the time there was any child abuse material on any device,” Det. Garda Barry said.

Two mobile phones were seized and the child abuse images were found on both phones.

The total number of items of child sex abuse imagery was 1,925. In terms of the most serious category 1 images, included young children engaged in sexual acts with animals, there were 386 images and 81 videos. Category 2 images showing the genital areas of children amounted to 1,448 images and 10 videos.

Suicide attempts

Ultimately, the accused was fully cooperative with the investigation and admitted possession of the material. There was no distribution of the material by the accused and nobody was aware of the material he was accessing.

Judge Dara Hayes asked if the accused man had indicated how he began to access this material or if he was involved in any type of online sharing. 

Det. Garda Barry said there was no such sharing by the accused and that by his own admission Jamie Healy began browsing the internet for this material in the summer of 2017 and was caught in October 2018. Det. Garda Barry said the defendant had been married but was now separated.

The detective said that following the detection of the material and the questioning of the accused he made three attempts to take his own life.

In relation to a psychiatric report that was put into evidence by the defence, Det. Garda Barry said: “I was not aware of some of the issues in his history.” Ray Boland, defence senior counsel, said of Jamie Healy: “From the psychiatric report he would have had a history of being a loner. He has not come to attention since (the detection in 2018). He has been very cooperative. 

"He did not admit it in the heat of the moment but immediately afterwards he did cooperate.

“His marriage ended as a result of this issue. Obviously it is a very serious case. He is a working man. I would ask the court to mark the severity of the matter but to suspend the sentence in its entirety.” 

Judge Hayes said: “It is a serious matter. There are a significant number of images – many of them are of a serious nature. I intend to finalise the matter on Tuesday, February 8.”