The sentencing of a divorced father of six who downloaded child pornographic images described as "amongst the worst that have ever come before the courts" has been adjourned until June 20th
Gerard McMahon (53), a former civil servant, of The Richmond, off North Brunswick Street, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to five counts of possession of child pornography on dates in March 2002. Judge Yvonne Murphy allowed the adjournment to provide time for the Granada Institute to perform a risk assessment of McMahon.
Det Sgt James Madden had earlier told Ms Martina Baxter, prosecuting, that gardaí seized two computers, cables and a keyboard from McMahon's apartment on September 29, 2002.
McMahon admitted using his credit card to access images and movie files, depicting babies and children up to 13 or 14 years of age, but did not save, print or exchange these images.
"They are of a graphic and horrific nature and fall into the very serious end of the child pornography scale," Det Sgt Madden said.
A sample of the pictures and movies recovered was shown to Judge Murphy.
Det Sgt Madden told Ms Baxter the images clearly depicted young children and not teenagers who could be mistaken for adults. He said that every time he viewed the images, he found them "very hard to look at and very hard to take". He said they showed children posing in sexual positions and performing sexual acts on other children and adults.
Some of the images were exact recordings of sexual assaults on young children. One showed a boy raping a girl over a toilet, and another showed a three-year-old girl being raped.
Det Sgt Madden said McMahon admitted he knew the nature of these images when he accessed them but added that it was his intention to delete them after they were viewed.
Det Sgt Madden did not accept a suggestion by Mr Martin Dully, defending, that McMahon showed "self-disgust" for his participation in these offences.
Det Sgt Madden agreed with Mr Dully that McMahon was a very lonely and isolated individual who had a lengthy history of social phobia, anxiety and depression. Mr Dully submitted that the quantity of the material found was not significant and said it demonstrated that McMahon was able to use some form of control over his habit