Man caught in Mayo by 'paedophile hunters' given three year sentence

A 57-year-old man who was caught by 'paedophile hunters' sending sexually explicit images and messages to three girls he believed to be under 14 was sentenced to three years imprisonment.

Brendan Glynn of no fixed abode appeared before Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court where he was sentenced after pleading guilty to six charges of Section 8 of the Sexual Offences Act which involved using communication technology to send sexually explicit material to a child.

The court heard that was apprehended by people involved in organisations who operated bogus Facebook accounts purporting to be girls under 17 years of age in order to catch sexual predators. The defendant was arrested after the operators of the Facebook pages contacted Gardaí after he sent sexually explicit material but despite his arrest he continued to contact the person he believed was a teenage girl.

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Mr Glynn who worked in the hospitality business in the UK has been in custody since last July and his barrister, Mr Diarmuid Connolly argued he has not had the benefit of prison and is a different man to the person who first came before the court last year. He said Mr Glynn is willing to change and atone from his offending behaviour and asked Judge Eoin Garavan not to impose a custodial sentence.

However Judge Eoin Garavan told Mr Connolly that he has a very different view and he doesn't accept that Mr Glynn has changed. He noted a psychologist report which stated that Mr Glynn does not appear to have any motivation to address his offending behaviour and he continues to minimise his offending behaviour.

“He had an appalling experience with the Probation Service and was evasive at all times and simply did not turn up and deal with the matter. He only engaged with the Probation Services while in custody with nowhere to evade them.

“He takes minimal responsibility and blames the former wife. He didn't do anything about his condition and refused to accept it and uses language like regret. That is as far as it goes and he minimises everything and doesn't accept this will happen again,” he said during the sentencing hearing.

Last July, Detective Garda John Lynsky told the court that on February 21, 2023 Gardaí received information from Gillian Duffy who volunteered with an online child protection team called Child Protection Agency based in Ireland.

She operated a child decoy Facebook account of a 14 year old girl and forwarded the chat log history of the account she operated and that of Brendan Glynn as well as WhatsApp messages which were sent between February 3, 2023 and February 19, 2023.

Det Garda Lynskey explained that the messages were viewed and they were explicit in nature and the accused man stated he was from Castlebar. He added that Ms Duffy informed him she was 14 years of age from the outset.

Judge Eoin Garavan imposed three year prison sentence

On February 22, 2023, a second person called Christina Gregory from an online child protection team called Predator Exposure contacted the Gardaí to say she operated a decoy Facebook account of a 13 year old girl. She received a friend request from Mr Glynn on February 2, 2023 and the chat log history containing 334 pages of messages from February 2, 2023 to February 21, 2023 was forwarded to gardaí. They contained sexually explicit messages and images in nature with eleven images of a male penis being forwarded to the girl's Facebook account.

Mr Glynn was arrested on February 24, 2023 by Det Garda Lynsky and admitted to sending photos to the Facebook account and regretted the comments.

At the time Mr Glynn was staying in a hotel in Castlebar and Det Garda Lynsky confirmed the background of the hotel room matched that of the background images received by the teenage girl. Mr Glynn acknowledged he knew the girl stated she was 14.

Mr Glynn was subsequently charged and released on bail but on May 4, 2023 Gardaí received information from another person involved in Predator Exposure who operated a Facebook account purporting to be a 13 year old girl. She forwarded chat history between the accused and the decoy account between April 23, 2023 and April 30, 2024 which contained sexually explicit messages and images of a male penis.

Det Garda Lynsky added that gardaí also received information from Gillian Duffy on May 7, 2023 to state the defendant was once again communicating to the decoy Facebook account of a 14 year old girl she was operating. This communication lasted from April 21, 2023 to May 7, 2023.

Mr Glynn was arrested by Gardaí in a second Castlebar hotel where he admitted contacting her.

Mr Glynn was charged with six sample charges and Det Garda Lynsky explained that in one of the messages Mr Glynn said he was 'so looking forward' to tasting her p***y with his tongue. In another he said 'would you like to send you my horny c**k photo' and in another he stated 'I have a c**k photo for you dear would you like me to send it'.

Mr Glynn also sent images of a male penis while sitting on a chair and another image of a male standing in front of a mirror with a penis and torso visible.

The court heard that Mr Glynn returned to Ireland around November 2022 but admitted to Gardaí that in 2022 he was beaten by 'paedophile hunters' after he travelled to Devon on a train to meet an underage girl. He told gardaí he was assaulted at the train station before being taken to a police station where he was questioned before being released.

Mr Connolly said that he had letters from his client's sister and 95 year old father who expressed concern for him and that they would support him to get him help. She said that his marriage in the UK had broken up leading him to become depressed and his former wife had denied him access to their young daughter.

He added that Mr Glynn asked to be remanded in custody last July and did not have access to the Safer Lives sex offenders programme in prison but gave an undertaking he will do it and follow any directions of the court or the Probation Service.

Mr Connolly noted that while his client is charged with communicating with a child, he did not communicate with any child and suggested no harm was done to anyone in this case as the persons he communicated with were adults posing as children.

He added that his client had no previous convictions before these incidents and that he was ashamed of what he had done. He claimed he was dealing with his shame and had insight with what he did and asked Judge Garavan to be lenient.

Judge Garavan said that an extraordinary feature of the case was that Mr Glynn tried to contact another underage girl after he had been questioned by gardaí in February 2023. He added that he told the Probation Services that he had learned his lesson and did not believe he needed to take part in a sex offenders programme.

Judge Garavan imposed a three year prison sentence and stated he would not suspend any part of the sentence but agreed to backdate it to July 18, 2024, the date Mr Glynn entered custody.

He also imposed a post release supervision order to bring Mr Glynn under the supervision of the Probation Service for one year post release.