A man who grew up ashamed of his sexuality has been sentenced to two years and four months in jail after he was caught with videos of the most extreme form of child sex abuse material.
Stephen Comiskey (51) Turnbury Road, Baldoyle, Co. Dublin, appeared before the Circuit Criminal Court after Gardaí discovered 101 indecent images of children on his mobile phone.
Detective Garda Rebecca Doyle agreed with prosecuting counsel, Lisa Dempsey BL, that Gardaí received a tip off on foot of a UK-based investigation which uncovered that the accused was sending and receiving indecent images to a number of individuals whom he believed to be teen boys.
He came to court on a signed plea of guilty in respect of breaches of Section 6 of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998, after Gardaí executed a search warrant at his home address, which he shared with his wife and children at the time.
Judge Orla Crowe heard that the accused had engaged in “sexually explicit conversations” with an individual whom he believed to be a 14-year-old boy. His mobile phone was found to contain
Ms Dempsey told the court that the accused had sent photographs of his own genitals to the supposed children and that he was the admin of a group chat on the social media platform Kick, where he sent and received images.
When he was interviewed by Gardaí, he read from a prepared statement and accepted that the images described to him were found on his device.
I accept that I was in cooms with a minor and that I was in possession of child pornography,” he wrote, claiming that he had “no intention” of meeting up with the individuals concerned. He accepted that his conduct was “inappropriate and wrong”.
He said he was “aware that children have been abused for images like this to be created”, but did not explain as to why he engaged in the offending.
Ms Dempsey said that the images of child sexual abuse, 64 of which were category 1 (the most extreme form), depicted boys between the ages of 10 and 17 years being made to engage in sexual acts with adults.
He was also in possession of 37 files containing category 2 child sex abuse material, which featured photographs of children’s genital areas.
He had 41 videos of extreme child sex abuse, which were unique to him, and seven videos of category 2 abuse, six of which were unique to him.
Fiacra Nicholas Treacy BL, defending, argued that his child was “married with children” at the time and was working from home as an IT professional.
He said that when Gardaí entered the family home, he had “turned to his wife and immediately apologised”.
Comiskey has no previous convictions and has now lost his wife, and has only “limited access” to his children, Mr Treacy argued.
Mr Treacy argued that “Everyone in the courtroom knows” how ‘deplorable’ his client’s behaviour is, adding that he has engaged in therapy since the discovery.
Comiskey had a “difficult childhood” and was “bullied” because “Many of the children believed that he was a homosexual,” he argued.
He argued that Treacy “always struggled with his sexuality” and “didn’t tell anyone due to the stigma,” which led him to marry a woman.
“Many individuals enter marriage to simulate what they perceive to be expected from them,” he said, adding that his client was “embarrassed by his sexual interest in males,” specifically “adolescent males”.
He pleaded with the court to consider the legal precedent of DPP vs Loving, which dictates that a judge must consider imposing a suspended sentence for first-time offenders in the absence of certain aggravating factors.
Judge Crowe said that the sexualised conversation in which photos of genitalia were sent and received was of “particular concern to this court” as they involved an indivudia whom had identified themselves as a 14-year-old boy.
She said that the accused “acknowledges he has an attraction to teenage boys,” and his “issues with his sexuality over the years”, before stating the threshold for a custodial sentence had been “reached and exceeded” in this case.
Judge Crowe said it was “self-evident that child pornography is an evil, and it is an appalling abuse of the og the innocence of children that they would be subjected to abuse of that nature”, as children are “vulnerable” members of society.
The court noted the signed plea of guilty as a mitigating factor, as well as a letter of apology in which the accused had said he was “ready to pay his victims and society for these crimes.”
Judge Crowe set a headline sentence of three years and six months before passing an actual sentence of two years and four months from today’s date.
An order for the destruction of the offending images was granted to the state.