Five year sentence for man who offered boy €50 for sex

A SIXTY-three-year-old man who offered a young schoolboy €50 to have sex with him was sentenced to five years imprisonment at last week’s sitting of Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court.
Thomas Folliard of 1 Church Road, Aghamore was sentenced after he was convicted by a jury of sexual exploitation when he offered €50 to a 13-year-old schoolboy to have sex with him. The trial in July heard that on January 13, 2016, Mr Folliard followed the then 13-year-old around a supermarket in a Mayo town before following him on to the street.
As the boy walked home from school he was approached by the defendant who asked him if he wanted to make some money and had €10 in his hand. He then offered the boy €50 to have sex with him and when he declined, Mr Folliard commented he was a ‘lovely lad’ before turning and walking back.
Despite the guilty verdict, Mr Folliard did not accept the jury’s decision and in interviews with the Probation Services, he denied responsibility for his actions and showed no remorse. In sentencing, Judge Rory McCabe described the offence as ‘grave and despicable’ and given his absence of remorse he said a five-year sentence was proper and proportionate.
In a victim impact statement, the teenager said that since the incident, he does not walk home alone and is now conscious of what is around him. He said he was a sports fanatic at the time of the incident but since then he started to miss training if he could not get a lift. He was dropped from his team as a result and grew frustrated as he could not speak to his coaches about what happened. He added he started to get frustrated in school and would get into trouble.
He said he was now seeing a psychologist and talking about the incident was helping him. The boy said the trial was frustrating as he was made to feel like a liar and no one believed him. He concluded that it was a big relief the case was now over.
The court heard that CCTV from the supermarket was used to identify Mr Folliard but he made no formal admission when he was arrested and questioned.

‘Three sentence conversation’
Mr Brendan McDonagh, counsel for Mr Folliard, said there was no violence or threat of violence used in the incident and described the exchange as a three sentence conversation. He described Mr Folliard as a very religious man who was involved in his local church. Once he was charged he informed the local parish priest and stepped away from his role as a Minister of the Eucharist.
He said Mr Folliard was a very helpful neighbour and helped elderly people with their day-to-day needs.
Mr McDonagh said the offence was at the lower end of the scale of gravity and his client had an unblemished criminal record up to this offence. He added that he suffered from a brain haemorrhage when he was 37 and asked Judge McCabe to be as lenient as possible.
Judge McCabe said that given the lack of remorse and culpability for the crime, Mr Folliard was not suitable for sexual offending treatment and he was concerned by the risk he posed in the future. He said there was evidence of premeditation in the case and he tried to lure the injured party. He accepted Mr Folliard was an old man in ill health but stated a custodial sentence was inevitable.