Sex offender befriended 'vulnerable teenager' after falsely claiming to be youth worker

Sonya McLean

A convicted sex offender who befriended “a particularly vulnerable teenager” after falsely claiming to be a youth worker has been jailed for four years for sexual exploitation of that teenager.

Paul Morris (58) pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexual exploitation of the then 15-year-old at Morris’s mobile home in Chianti Park, Tallaght on dates between July 2009 and July 2010.

Morris had originally been charged with 10 charges of defilement, but a plea to sexual exploitation was accepted by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

This charge carries a maximum penalty of life, which is a higher penalty than what is available to the court for defilement.

Morris was jailed for eight years in November 2022 after he was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury on two counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted anal rape at his address in Chianti Park on dates between May 1st 2010, and April 1st, 2011.

The court heard during that hearing that Morris spoke to the child’s mother on the phone and told her that he was a youth worker in order to give the mother some reassurance and encourage her to give her child permission to stay the night with him in the mobile home.

On Wednesday, the now 31-year-old victim in the current case read his victim impact statement.

He said he had gone to social services when he was 17 years old to report Morris, but “nothing was done about it”. He spoke of how both “my own mother and grandmother didn’t want to believe me”.

The man also referred to a counsellor he met in school at that time, who believed him and was a good support to him. That woman was in court with him during the sentence hearing on Wednesday.

The man spoke of how he later heard that people who were abused as children often become abusers themselves. He said this terrified him and impacted his own relationship with his daughters, describing how he would not change his daughter’s nappy due to this.

The man described Morris as “pure evil” not just due to the abuse but also how he manipulated him and tried to keep him away from his family. He said Morris “alienated” him from his mother.

“I hope you look at the walls in prison and cringe,” the man continued.

He said he is “beyond proud of myself that I am here now”. He said he hopes the sentence will reflect “the monster” Morris is.

Sentencing Morris on Wednesday, Judge Orla Crowe imposed a sentence of five years.

She suspended the final 12 months of that sentence on strict conditions, including that he engage with the Probation Service for 12 months upon his release from prison.

Judge Crowe said this four-year jail term must be served consecutively to the sentence Morris is currently serving. He had been due for release in 2028.

Judge Crowe said the offences represented “a violation of a child’s bodily integrity and of a child’s innocence” before she added that children are protected for very specific reasons.

“He identified a very vulnerable boy, and he groomed him, and he took advantage of a child who had become a little unstuck and had the misfortune to meet him - he took advantage of him in every way,” Judge Crowe said.

“All of this was designed to isolate a particularly vulnerable child and keep him away from his family,” the judge continued before she referred to the fact that Morris gave the boy money and runners.

She described it as “predatory grooming behaviour over an extensive period of time”, which had a profound impact on the victim.