Former Mayo HSE manager jailed for six years for role in ‘paedophile ring’

A FORMER HSE manager who was part of an online paedophile ring has been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.

Peter O’Malley (47) of Hawthorn Place, Ballinrobe, appeared before Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court yesterday where he was sentenced to a total of six years and nine months after pleading 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 of a group on a social-media app where child pornography was shared and users would discuss having sex with underage children, including babies and toddlers.

Torture

In sentencing Mr O’Malley, Judge Garavan said that being an administrator of the group showed that the defendant was a very willing participant. He added that the depravity of the images and the duration of 22 months in which he engaged in the activity demonstrated that he was a type of paedophile who was attracted in a sexual way to prepubescent children.

“It seems to me that ultimately the accused was a member of a type of paedophile ring, not in the way which we would understand it of perpetrating sexual assaults but none the less the sharing and distribution of depraved [images of] children essentially being abused in such a way which amounts to torture, and given the nature of what is done to them is physically and emotionally torture,” Judge Garavan said.

“Anyone’s heart would break at seeing children being very upset and disturbed by being penetrated or the victim of other sexual activity. They could be seen screaming and crying of which is the most disturbing image to have to think about,” he added.

FBI involvement

The facts in the case were heard last month when Detective Garda Paula Griffin of the Mayo Divisional Protection Services Unit explained to the court that Mr O’Malley was identified as an administrator of the app by the FBI in Philadelphia and intelligence was shared with An Garda Síochána on May 18, 2021.

She explained that the defendant facilitated users’ entry onto the app, and that in order to gain access the would-be users would have to send three videos and five images of a 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 the material was pornographic – legal and illegal.

Det Garda Griffin explained that 249 images were child pornographic material, with 62 categorised as being Category One content (the most serious category) 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 years engaged in sexually explicit activity or witnessing it, including 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 the Gardaí had managed to retrieve deleted messages. She said that in excess of 10,000 conversations from December 2019 to April 2021 were recovered, and the defendant who was using the name ‘Pat Noone’ was identified in 30 conversations that contained illegal material.

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

Extremely graphic

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 discussed his sexual fantasies of sexual intercourse with this child. In another conversation, another user outlined he has 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 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 contained 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 gardaí following his arrest, Mr O’Malley admitted to being the user in the app but did not give any reason for his activity.

‘Dark place’

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, and that since the charges had come to light he has been estranged from his parents and his siblings.

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 in relation to this case. He resigned last June. All his work devices were examined, and none contained any illegal material.

Mr Dockery said that his client had been engaged to be married in May 2020, but the relationship ended at the end of 2019 he was at a very low ebb. He said that when the Covid lockdown was introduced in March 2020, Mr O’Malley was living alone and working from home, and he 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 on it.”

Explanation not accepted

At yesterday’s sentencing sitting, Judge Garavan said he did not accept this explanation saying that given his background and intelligence, Mr O’Malley should have realised the depravity of what he was doing and not continued it for 22 months.

“It is hard to accept any genuine remorse his counsel urged on this court on his behalf. He could never explain why he felt this remorse.

“It seems to me he was aware of the depraved and violent nature of it and knew well what was happening was the worst type of images being shared. This man is intelligent and he must have the insight to understand that the photographs of these children are real children. They may not be in his town or in the country, but they are young children being abused by an adult for the sexual fantasies of sick adults.

“Clearly these were people who are attracted to the sexual exploitation of children, which is of course an offence that the majority of people would find hard to comprehend,” he said.

Judge Garvan imposed concurrent sentences in four of the counts, with the charge of distribution of child pornography receiving the longest sentence of nine years.

After taking into account the mitigating factors, including the fact he is undergoing counselling and has shown insight and is an appropriate person for sex offenders’ programme, the judge reduced each sentence by 25 percent.

As a result, he imposed a custodial sentence of six years and nine months, but suspended the final nine months for a two-year period.

Judge Garavan added that upon his release Mr O’Malley will come under the supervision of the Probation Service for three years. During this time, he must continue counselling and undertake a sex offenders’ course, and he must have the permission of the Gardaí or the Probation Service before he can own or access a smart phone or other such digital device.

Judge Garavan commented that this was a significant sentence in terms of child pornography. He said he had taken into account Mr O’Malley’s role as administrator and distributor and the graphic nature of the matter, along with the nature of the conversations in the group chat, before finalising the sentence.

He also backdated the sentence to October 31 last, which is the date when Mr O’Malley was placed in custody.