A man who admitted to gardaíthat he began accessing sexually explicit material from the age of 11 has been given a nine-month suspended sentence for possession of almost 2,000 child abuse images.
Owen Glynn (34) was caught with the images in 2011 after gardaíwere alerted by authorities in another jurisdiction to the fact that illegal material was being accessed at that address.
Detective Garda Ken McGreevey told Diarmuid Collins BL, prosecuting, that a warrant was secured to search Glynn’s home and various exhibits were seized. Glynn made admissions that day, but due to a backlog the exhibits were not analysed until early 2016 and he was not charged until December 2018.
The detective confirmed that 1,886 images were discovered which depicted children between 12 and 17 years old with their genitalia exposed.
Glynn told gardaí at his home that he had been looking at similar images from age of about 11 or 12 years old. He started off watching adult pornography but subsequently began to access sexually explicit images of children.
Glynn of Rathvale Drive, Ayrfield, Dublin 13, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of child pornography at his home on February 7th, 2011.
Det Gda McGreevey said Glynn fully co-operated with the investigation. He has no previous convictions and has not come to garda attention since.
“He is a reclusive character. He lives with his mother and this has impacted heavily on her. His mother is a good support to him, as he is to her,” the detective said after he added that Glynn’s father had recently passed away.
The detective agreed with Judge Melanie Greally that the content of the images was “not at the more extreme level” and was confined to older children and teenagers.
Bernard Condon SC, defending, made reference to the fact that Glynn was waiting over seven years before he was charged with the offence.
“You move on with your life and you hope this awful thing may have passed you by, but then you get the knock on the door,” counsel said.
He said the Director of Public Prosecution had originally sent the case to the District Court, but the judge there refused jurisdiction.
Mr Condon handed in a report that described his client as “psychologically vulnerable and prone to depression and anxiety”.
Counsel acknowledged that such offences are “deeply unpleasant no matter what category the images fall into but these fall into category one”.
Judge Greally set a headline sentence of 15 months, but took into consideration Glynn’s admissions, lack of previous convictions and the fact that the images fell into the lowest category in terms of seriousness.
She reduced the sentence to nine months and suspended it for a year on condition that Glynn keep the peace and be of good behaviour for 12 months.