A Co Donegal man caught with child sex abuse and anime images on a hard-drive has avoided jail.
John Sweeney (60) appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to possession of the images when his house at Dore, Bunbeg was raided by gardaí on July 24th, 2019.
Det Garda Enda Jennings and Michelle Kelly were acting on information forwarded by the Garda National Protective Services Bureau.
It followed information they received that a user had uploaded child pornography from an internet account traced to Sweeney.
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Gardaí visited the house and seized three mobile phones and a hard-drive.
All the images, including a total of 139 child abuse images and 94 anime images – a style of Japanese film and TV animation – were found on the hard-drive. He was arrested and taken to Milford Garda station where he co-operated and told gardaí he had been going through a difficult time and was drinking heavily.
The court heard Sweeney lived alone and had no previous convictions.
However, because of a backlog in investigating such cases around the country at the time, it wasn’t until November 2023 that a plea could be made.
A number for the One in Four counselling service was given to Sweeney and he went about getting counselling.
Barrister for the accused, Patricia McLaughlin, SC McLaughlin said it was not the case that her client shared any of the images and had no great sophisticated knowledge of computers but was accessing adult pornography over a period of time.
Child pornography then began to pop up and he developed some curiosity on this, saying her client had an “unsophisticated fall” into it.
A probation service report dated May 29th, 2025, said he was at a low risk of reoffending and noted he has expressed remorse and is aware the images are wrong and was happy to go under the supervision of the service.
Ms McLaughlin asked Judge John Aylmer to consider dealing with the offence by way of a non-custodial sentence considering the overall amount of images, the amount of time the accused man had them in his possession – estimated to be two months – and how he came upon the images.
Judge Aylmer said on the very early plea and the number of images involved, he placed the offence at the lower end of the scale and one which merited a sentence of two years before mitigation.
In mitigation, the judge said Sweeney had no previous convictions, had co-operated fully with gardaí and had entered an early plea. He reduced the sentence to 18 months in prison and accepted the advance by Ms McLaughlin, that there were similarities to another case, the McGinty case.
He agreed that this was one of those unusual cases where the court can suspend the entirety of the 18-month sentence and ordered Sweeney to go under the supervision of the probation services.
