Court hears Mayo man fantasised about having sex with children

A MAYO man who was found in possession of over 200 images of child pornography and fantasised on an online app about having sex with minors has been remanded in custody.

Peter O'Malley (47) of Hawthorn Place, Ballinrobe appeared before Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court where he pleaded guilty to ten sample charges in relation to the possession and distribution of child pornographic material between January 2020 and March 2021.

The charges included one count of causing a child to watch sexual activity, two counts of the use of information and communication technology to facilitate sexual exploitation of a child, three counts of possession of child pornography and four counts of distribution of child pornography.

The court heard that Mr O'Malley, who worked as a manager with the HSE in the west of Ireland, was an administrator on a social media messaging app where child pornographic material was shared and users would discuss having sex with underage children.

Detective Garda Paula Griffin of the Mayo Divisional Protection Services Unit explained to the court that Mr O'Malley was identified as a administrator of the app by the FBI in Philadelphia and intelligence was shared with An Garda Siochána on May 18, 2021.

She explained that the defendant facilitated entry onto the app and in order to gain access users would have to send three videos and five images of child sexual abuse nature, including the rape of children by adults.

On October 4, 2021, Gardaí searched Mr O'Malley's home in Ballinrobe and seized four electronic devices including two personal phones and a tablet and his HSE work phone. Gardaí discovered 128,791 images on his personal phone and of this 70 percent of material was of a pornographic nature – legal and illegal.

Det Garda Griffin explained that 249 images were of child pornographic material with 62 categorised as being category one content and 44 images of category two. No videos were recovered on the phone.

The category one images included content of children from three years to 17 engaged in sexually explicit activity or witnessing it, of which there were children being sexually abused by adults.

The category two images included content in which children's genitals were exposed and they were in poses of a sexual nature.

Detective Garda Griffin explained that the reason the investigation was initiated was because of Mr O'Malley's online activity on the app and gardaí managed to retrieve deleted Kik messages. She said there were in excess of 10,000 Kik conversations from December 2019 to April 2021 recovered and the defendant who was using the name 'Pat Noone' was identified in 30 conversations which contained illegal material.

The court was informed he was engaged in group chats where child explicit material was exchanged and shared child abuse material with other users. He stated repeatedly in the chats that his preference in age was with early teens and was the initiator of the majority of the chats recovered.

Det Garda Griffin gave an outline of the charges against Mr O'Malley and she explained that images shared into the group were of an extremely graphic nature. She said in one chat the defendant described his sexual fantasies with children and specifically stated a preference for sexual intercourse with eight to ten year olds.

In one conversation, one user informed Mr O'Malley that he has an eight year old daughter and the defendant discusses his sexual fantasies of sexual intercourse with this child. In another conversation, another user outlined he had a 12 year old daughter and Det Garda Griffin said the gravity and depravity of the messages increases during the conversation and Mr O'Malley discussed sexual acts with children in an extremely graphic nature. He discussed having sexual acts with the 12 year old girl and a the user at the same time.

In March 2021, Mr O'Malley engaged in a conversation with a user regarding a sexual act with a two-year-old baby who was said to be the daughter of the other user. Det Garda Griffin said the messages were of extremely graphic and disturbing descriptions of raping children.

She also outlined conversations Mr O'Malley had with users who identified themselves as underage teenage girls, one as young as 13 years. In some conversations he discussed meeting with some of the underage girls and told them he would like to have sex with them.

When questioned by gardai following his arrest, Mr O'Malley admitted to being the user in the app but did not give any reason for his activity.

Mr Desmond Dockery, senior counsel for Mr O'Malley said his client was a native of The Neale outside Ballinrobe and the eldest in his family but since the charges came to light he has been estranged from his parents and his siblings.

He explained that his client had been engaged to be married in May 2020 but the relationship ended at the end of 2019 and he was at a very low ebb. When the Covid lockdown was introduced in March 2020, he said he was living alone and working from home and started drinking excessively and engaging in adult porn.

Mr O'Malley, he said, was introduced to the app, where it became easy for him to get into illegal material.

“He fell deeper and deeper into this dark place and was completely out of character for him. His addiction to it deepened and he became fixated to it. He lacked any capacity to stand back and access where he was and what he was doing. Mr O'Malley was completely shrouded in a black form of shade from which he was unable to step back.

“He has no psychiatric history of issues and this man just fell into a pit of darkness,” Mr Dockery told Judge Eoin Garavan.

The court was told that Mr O'Malley played an important role in organising the testing for Covid-19 in Mayo and Roscommon but was suspended from his job with the HSE following his detection and resigned last June. Mr Dockery said that all his work devices were examined and none contained any illegal material.

Since his detection, Mr O'Malley has engaged with a clinical psychologist and Mr Dockery said he was highly motivated to engage with programmes to explore the answer as to why he did what he did.

Mr Dockery said he had no previous convictions and urged Judge Garavan to structure a sentence to encourage him to take further steps in his rehabilitation.

Judge Garavan said that having heard the shocking nature of the evidence it would be better to step away from the case and return to it in a more collective state of mind where emotions don't play a part.

He remanded Mr O'Malley in custody to appear before the court again on November 25 when he would finalise sentencing.