Court to sentence man guilty of possessing child pornography
on 03/11/2009 17:28:55
A father-of-two is to be sentenced early next year for possession of over 50,000 child pornography images.
Kieran Kavanagh (aged 51) of Catherine's Court, Newgrove Avenue, Sandymount will have to submit to random garda checks on his computer while he awaits finalisation of his sentence in March. He also had 102 movies of child abuse including one showing a child being raped by an adult.
He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of the files on his computer and harddrive on September 15, 2007.
Judge Katherine Delahunt heard the case was at the higher end of the scale and that most of the images showed children posing but some showed graphic sexual abuse.
She also heard Kavanagh had applied for treatment at the Grenada Sexual Offenders Institute but could no longer afford it because he had lost his job.
Funding for an assessment has since been arranged through the legal aid scheme and the Institute will report to the court early next year.
Detective Garda Barry Walsh told prosecuting counsel, Ms Úna Ní Raifeartaigh SC, that gardaí were alerted by German authorities that Kavanagh was a subscriber to child pornography websites.
He said they obtained a search warrant and were let into the apartment by his flatmate. They found Kavanagh sitting on his bed and detained him while they seized a large amount of computer equipment.
A laptop computer and external hard drive were examined by the Garda Computer Crimes Division who found the images and videos.
They had been saved by Kavanagh to the hard disk. Det Gda Walsh said the images were not concealed and were easily found on the computer.
Kavanagh was arrested and interviewed but refused to answer questions on the advice of his solicitor. However he later admitted the files were his and provided gardaí with a password to the laptop.
Defence counsel, Mr Remy Farrell BL, said Kavanagh was divorced with two children in their twenties. He said his marriage had broken up because of his "realisation of his sexual identity".
He said he had achieved good employment in the IT sector but has since lost his job and because of this conviction, future prospects looked "somewhat bleak".
Mr Farrell said Kavanagh had applied to the Grenada Institute for treatment and was fully aware of the seriousness of the charges.
He asked Judge Delahunt to deal with Kavanagh without sending him to jail because of the "minimal treatment" there for sex offenders.
She said she would consider the Institute's report before sentencing and remanded him on continuing bail. She also ordered he submit to random garda checks on his computer.