Defendant (16) possessed child pornography images
Gardaí found 49 images and 18 videos on the boy’s phone
A DEFENDANT was 16 years old when he viewed images of children on a pornography site, Carlow District Court heard last week. The defendant, who can’t be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to possessing the images after gardaí were alerted about it in June 2022.
The investigating garda told Judge Geraldine Carthy that gardaí found 49 images and 18 videos on the boy’s phone.
Solicitor Chris Hogan said that his client was 16 at the time and had been viewing a pornography site when he came across the illegal images.
When he put it to the garda that his client was “inquisitive” and hadn’t intended to look at images of children, the garda replied that she didn’t know what his intentions had been and that particular website contained the illegal images of children.
Mr Hogan continued that his client, who is from Co Carlow, “went down a dark hole and, as a result, illegal images were on his phone.” He said that while his parents didn’t condone his behaviour, they were with him in court to support him and they had arranged for him to complete a course through Túsla about child safety on the internet.
Mr Hogan said that his client had “made a catastrophic mistake” and that he didn’t believe that he was a risk to society.
He submitted to Judge Carthy not to impose a conviction and added that the defendant had a sum of money in court to pay as a donation.
Judge Carthy said that she would consider all the documents that were involved in the case and adjourned finalising the matter until 5 November at Kilkenny District Court.
