Cork man caught with more than 35,000 child abuse images is jailed

Judge said it was not a victimless crime and said one could only imagine the scale of abuse behind the images

Court heard officers of the Protective Services Unit of West Cork went to the Clonakilty home of Paul Quinlan on April 29, 2021, having received notification of the downloading of child abuse images by the accused. Picture: Dan Linehan

A man caught with more than 35,000 child abuse images at his home in Clonakilty was jailed on Tuesday for 18 months as the judge stressed none of the child victims depicted in the material could be asked in court how they were doing now.

Judge Sinead Behan stressed it was not a victimless crime and said in relation to the amount of children depicted in this material one could only imagine the scale of abuse behind the images, if one considered the numbers by reference to the average number of children in a school, for instance.