Man sentenced to seven years after video of him raping boy found on his phone

A man has been sentenced to seven years in prison after a video was found on his phone of him raping a young boy.

The Central Criminal Court heard that gardaí involved in the National Protection Services obtained a search warrant for an address in a town in Munster where they seized three Apple devices, including a laptop, iPad and iPhone.

The man, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the victim, has no previous convictions and was aged between 17 and 19 at the time of the offending.

The prosecuting gardaí told Roisin Lacey SC, prosecuting, that the devices were analysed and contained a video filmed in the accused man’s bedroom showing the anal rape of a young boy. The accused could be seen removing the child’s tracksuit bottoms and undressing himself.

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The court heard that the accused was 18 years old at the time of the rape, and the boy was aged ten years. The accused recorded the rape on an iPhone. He was arrested in September 2019 and was shown the video of the rape but asked for it to be turned off after 40 seconds.

The garda said the boy was identified, and a Tusla investigation took place. The boy was interviewed by social care workers and specialist gardaí and described the assaults carried out by the accused.

The boy said the sexual assaults took place in various locations. The accused would masturbate the boy and make the boy masturbate him. He would get the boy to lie naked on him as well as rubbing and grinding his own genitals on the boy’s genital area.

The accused pleaded guilty to one count of anal rape, five counts of sexual assault and one count of production of child pornography on dates between January 2014 and February 2015.

Det Gda Kieran Byrnes from the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau gave evidence of other explicit material found on the accused’s devices, including videos and images involving adult males engaging in sexual activity with young boys aged between five and 14 years. Some of this content showed children bound and in a distressed state.

Det Gda Byrnes told Róisín Lacey SC, prosecuting, that 18,000 instant message conversations were found on the devices with the accused asking, “Have you got any pictures or videos to trade?” and “Any young boys fucking?”

The court heard that the accused would use his iPad to record the screen of his iPhone of Snapchat videos sent to him showing young males masturbating.

A victim impact statement was read to the court by Ms Lacey, which said: “My life has changed for the worse.”

“[The accused] was a person I felt I could trust. I now know and understand that I did nothing wrong; he groomed me for his own sexual gratification. In time, I hope counselling will help me live a normal life,” the victim wrote.

The investigating gardaí agreed with Michael Bowman SC, defending, that his client kept to himself and spent most of his time on his Xbox.

The garda agreed with counsel that the accused comes from a hard-working family and they were shocked and appalled by what took place.

Mr Bowman said his client acknowledged in the probation report that he “groomed” the young boy and wanted to apologise to the victim and his family in open court. He said the accused understands the harm that he has done, and he said he “took advantage of the boy”.

Counsel said his client “took a drastic wrong turn in life”. He said: “No matter when he is released, he will be marked by this and not only himself but his family also.”

Mr Bowman asked the court to take into account that his client entered a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity.

Ms Lacey told the court it was the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP)’s view that this offending falls into the more serious category, meriting a headline sentence of ten to 15 years.

Passing sentence on Friday, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said he agreed with the DPP that this fell in the more serious category and set a headline sentence of 14 years. He said the most significant aggravating factor in this case was the recording of the anal rape by the accused.

He also considered the age disparity between the accused and the victim, the fact there was an element of grooming in this case, the serious and profound harm done, and the contents of the victim impact statement as aggravating factors. He placed this case at the top end of the offending scale.

Mr Justice Hunt said he would consider as mitigating factors the accused’s young age at the time of the offending; his personal circumstance and immaturity at the time; his early guilty plea; and his apology in open court.

The judge said the accused committed the most serious offence four months after turning 18 years of age.

Mr Justice Hunt sentenced the accused to eight years in prison, with the final year suspended on the count of rape backdated from when he went into custody.