Galway man jailed for possession of child abuse material

Claire Henry

A Galway man has been sentenced to one year in prison for the possession of child abuse material, which included children being “caged".

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Alan Keating (48) of Ranelagh Village, Dublin 6 and formerly of Co Galway, pleaded guilty to possession of child sexual abuse material on April 29th, 2017. He has no previous convictions and has not come to the attention of gardaí since.

Passing sentence on Thursday, Judge Martin Nolan said, “this defendant's residence was searched after gardaí received good information". He said a device was seized and analysed, and both images and videos were found. He also noted that a “very disturbing document” was also found.

Judge Nolan said: "This is a very serious matter, but there is good mitigation." He highlighted the early guilty plea, the level of cooperation, this defendant's work history, his lack of any previous convictions, the largely positive probation report before the court, and that this defendant took steps to address his problems.

The judge said, “there is distribution in this case to a modest extent". He noted that Keating entered a plea on a full facts basis and that the maximum sentence available to him was five years in prison.

Judge Nolan said the document found on Keating's laptop would be considered as an aggravating factor in this case. He sentenced him to one year in prison from today's date.

The court heard that in 2017, the gardaÍ received information from Interpol regarding the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), known in law as child pornography. Gardaí were given an IP address by Swiss authorities. They then traced the IP address to Keating, and a search warrant was issued for his home. The house was searched, and Keating was out of the country at the time. A HP laptop was seized and analysed.

330 images were found on the laptop of children aged between 1 and 12 years of age who were being subjected to or engaging in sexual acts. A small number of the images found contained extreme acts, which included rape, being bound with ropes or being contained in cages. 719 videos were found that contained children aged between 1 and 15 years of age involved in various sexually active activities.

The court heard that an additional 23,604 uncategorised files were also found on the laptop in unallocated space. These files could not be viewed because they had been deleted or partially deleted, and specialised forensic software would be required to view them.

A Word document was also found on Keating's laptop, which outlined “how to practise child love and safe and fun sex with children”. Payslips and bank documents belonging to Keating was also found on the laptop.

Keating was arrested and interviewed on four occasions. During his interviews, he gave no comment when questioned.

Kevin White, SC, defending, put it to the investigating garda that even though his client was out of the jurisdiction at the time of the search, he was contacted and gave his consent for the gardaí to enter his house. He also agreed that the 330 images and 791 videos were in a download folder and were not hidden on the computer.

The garda agreed with counsel that Keating had shared files on an online platform on ten occasions over a four-day period in 2017. He further agreed that after his laptop was seized in 2017, Keating immediately took part in extensive therapy to address his issues.

Mr White said his client is originally from Co Galway. He went to primary and secondary school there and went on to college in Athlone. He is a qualified baker and has a good work history. He said Keating was cooperative and showed good insight into his actions,

Counsel said his client experienced a childhood trauma, which had long-standing difficulties for him. He said that when the gardaí contacted him, he felt a “sense of relief".

He said that at the time of this offending, Keating was going through “a period of psychological vulnerability”. Mr White also highlighted to the court that his client underwent two separate risk assessments, both of which placed him at low risk of reoffending.

He asked the court to take into account that his client will now be placed on the Sex Offender Register and that this type of offence gathers media attention, and that “society’s reaction to these types of offences can be like".

Mr White asked the court to consider a non-custodial sentence.