A Scottish man who was caught by an off duty Garda taking ‘up skirt’ photos on the Luas has had his five and a half year sentence reduced by nearly two years.
Paul Boyle who is in his forties and has an address in Sandyford View, Blackglen Road, Dublin 18 was sentenced to five and a half years in jail after hundreds of thousands of similar images were found in his possession including a video of “extremely explicit” child abuse.
However, the court of appeal ruled that the original sentence was excessive with Judge Patrick McCarthy saying on behalf of the court of three justices that it was “excessive to the point that there was an error in principle”.
The court updated the sentence to five years in total for the offences, suspending the last 16 months for two years, leaving Boyle with a prison sentence of three years and eight months according to the Limerick Leader.
Boyle was caught by the off duty Garda in December 2019 with over 200,000 images of women and girl’s legs, groins, and buttocks taken between June 2018 and January 2020 being found on his phone. This included a large number of ‘upskirt’ shots.
In July 2022 the Sunday World reported that the child abuse video found in Burke’s possession was of an eight year old child being bound and raped.
A detective garda told Judge Martin Nolan, who handed down the original sentence, that the child had since been located and was being cared for.
During his trial the court heard that Boyle posed a medium risk of reoffending with Judge Nolan commenting that the man, who had come to Ireland in 2018, had taken photos of women and girls ‘throughout Dublin’ especially in the Ranelagh area.
Nolan had imposed sentences of five years and three years to be served consecutively in respect of the offences with the final two and a half years suspended with the sentence backdated to March 2021 when Boyle was taken into custody.