A FORMER Luas driver who e-mailed child pornographic video clips to seven other people has been sentenced to five years in jail by Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
A Meath resident who received the messages has been given a two-year suspended sentence.
Noel O’Neill (36), Uppercross Court, Tallaght, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of child pornography for the purpose of distribution and having video clips of child pornography on January 21st, 2005.
Barry Byrne (26), Turry Meadows, Athboy, pleaded guilty to having the images at Willow Park, Ballymun, on April 13, 2006. Neither O’Neill nor Byrne had previous convictions and they were registered as sex offenders.
Both men told gardaí that they had been molested as children and were not interested in the children sexually, while O’Neill said he had identified with them rather than been attracted to them.
Byrne told gardaí he had been motivated by “a curiosity” into child pornography because of the abuse he suffered. He had been “drawn into” chatrooms and later received the e-mails from O’Neill.
He admitted he had received a number of images but he later blocked them. Investigating garda Annalise Hannigan confirmed a number of the e-mails sent to him had bounced back.
Det Garda James Duffy told Úna Ní Raifeartaigh, prosecuting, that the Garda had been contacted by Surrey police in relation to an e-mail address and visual images of young children that they had been trying to identify.
Gardaí were able to link the e-mail address to O’Neill and his laptop was later confiscated after he came voluntarily to the Garda station and made admissions.
Det Garda James Duffy said that O’Neill took responsibility for the dozen 30-second clips that were later found on his computer.
He said the images involved both boys and girls aged between four and 13 years old, with eight clips involving adults and children and the others just children.
John Leydon (29), Riverside, Charlotte Quay, and formerly of Tynan Hall, Tallaght, who also had received the e-mails from O’Neill, was given a two-year suspended sentence by Judge Martin Nolan last month, after he pleaded guilty to having child pornography on a memory stick and CDs in 2006.
Leydon’s name was also added to the sex offender’s register.
Judge Delahunt accepted that O’Neill had not engaged in the distribution of the pornography for financial gain and as such, he could not be considered to be part of the “pornographic industry”.
She took into account his co-operation, his plea of guilty, that he had not come to Garda attention before or since and the efforts he had made to address “the root cause of his re-offending”, before suspending the last two years of the sentence.
Judge Delahunt suspended the entirety of Byrne’s two-year term having also taken into account his plea of guilty and co-operation.