A Lithuanian man has avoided jail after he was found in possession of child sex abuse material.
Gedas Bertulia (34), who has an address in Mulhuddart, Dublin 15, appeared before the Circuit Criminal Court where Detective Garda Megan Fury gave details of the investigation that led to his detection and arrest.
The court heard that in October 2022 the Garda Online Child Exploitation Unit became aware that child abuse images were being accessed from an address in Dublin 15.
A search warrant was executed at 7:40am on the 28th of October at a home belonging to the accused’s sister where 16 devices were examined before the offending material was discovered on one device.
In all 34 videos of category 1 (the most extreme) child abuse material, and 5 videos of child exposure were discovered.
The court heard that the shortest video child sex abuse was 20 seconds in duration, while the longest was 1hr and 3 minutes.
These videos depicted the “a range” of sexual abuse of children aged 5 to 13 years “engaged in various sexual activities” with adult males including penetrative and oral sex abuse.
Bertulia was not at the address at the time, but returned when he became aware of the search where he “apologised” for his behaviour.
He has 4 previous convictions for breaches of the Road Traffic Act including no insurance, driving over the alcohol limit, and no NCT.
When being interviewed by Gardaí, Bertulia admitted that he had downloaded “underage” pornography and said that he was “glad” that he had been caught, saying he had an “addiction” and was “sick to my stomach” of what he had done.
“I would like to apologise for my disgusting behaviour,” he said.
The court heard that Bertulia had wanted to become a policeman in his homeland, but had failed a health check before coming to Ireland and eventually working in construction.
He has been here for 20 years, but during covid was “drinking a lot” and was finishing in the region of 3 bottles of whisky over several days.
Judge Martin Nolan asked counsel for the DPP if the case of Loving was still “the precedent”, before receiving confirmation that it was.
He said that the material was “not easily found” and that the accused “knew where to look”.
Taking into consideration the lack of aggravating factors such as relevant previous convictions, distribution, “and other factors” he explained that the court was bound to consider a suspended sentence.
“This court doesn’t work in a vacuum,” he said, adding that the case before him was a “normal, unfortunately, child pornography case.”
He sentenced Bertulia to 2 and-a-half years which he suspended in full on condition of good behaviour, and that the accused enter into his own bond of €100.