Revenue instructs customs officers to seize ‘child sex dolls’

Revenue Customs has instructed officers to seize “childlike dolls” that may constitute a form of child pornography.

It follows the conclusion of a court case in November against a man accused of importing a “child sex doll” into the country in 2020, the first and only case of its kind to be prosecuted in Ireland.

Mark Wright (27), of Corrig, Stradbally, Co Laois, originally pleaded not guilty to 71 counts of possession of child pornography, including a Japanese-made doll depicting a child “with penetrable orifices”.

The case concluded last month, with the prosecution accepting a guilty plea to a single count of possession of images and video depicting child abuse material. Wright is due to be sentenced at Portlaoise Circuit Criminal Court in February.

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Justice sources said there has been some confusion in recent years as to whether realistic childlike dolls that depict the genital area constitute child pornography under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998.

The Act contains a comparatively broad definition of child pornography which includes “any visual representation . . . that shows, for a sexual purpose, the genital or anal region of a child or of a person depicted as being a child”.

In recent years people have been convicted of possessing animated images and text descriptions depicting child abuse but the offence of possessing a childlike doll has never been tested at trial. However, Revenue and the Garda have taken the view the legal definition of child pornography covers realistic childlike dolls, clearly manufactured for sexual purposes.

Earlier this month, Revenue Customs issued an updated instruction to officers that dolls being imported or exported into the State that fit this definition should be seized in advance of possible criminal proceedings.

“The online availability of silicone dolls that are childlike in appearance, weight and anatomy has been identified in recent years,” it told officers.

It said any childlike dolls of a sexual nature “fall within this definition are subject to prohibition under the 1998 Act”.

Officers are instructed that dolls fitting these criteria can be detained under the Customs Act 2015, which allows for the seizure of items “to determine whether the item is required as evidence in any criminal proceedings”.

The person importing or exporting the doll should be notified in writing, the memo states.

Gardaí have seized a number of child sex dolls in raids in recent years. However, to date, no one has been convicted of possession of such a doll.

In 2018, a person suspected of selling the dolls was arrested as part of Operation Ketch which targeted child pornography offences across 12 counties.

The following year it seized another doll as part of the same operation, which saw 14 addresses raided across six counties.

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