A 46-year-old man has been jailed for 18 months after he was caught by a group, styling themselves as “paedophile hunters”, after the man turned up at a Cork cafe to meet what he believed was a 14-year-old girl with the intention of having sex with her.
Tim Bowen of Buncollie, Monkstown, Co Cork pleaded guilty to two offences arising from the incident which happened when the group, using an adult decoy pretending to be the young girl, met Bowen at the Costa Coffee cafe on Bishopstown Road in Bishopstown, Cork on July 26th, 2019.
Bowen pleaded guilty to attempting to communicate with a child by using information and communication technology for the purpose of facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child, contrary to section 8(1) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017.
He also pleaded guilty to attempting to intentionally meet a child with whom he had a previous communication for the purposes of sexual exploitation, namely sexual assault of the child, contrary to section 7 (1) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017.
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Sgt Gary Duggan told how he attended at the cafe in Bishopstown on July 26th, 2019 after he was alerted by a group styling themselves as paedophile hunters that they had stopped Bowen as they believed he had come to the cafe with the intention of meeting a 14-year-old girl for sex.
Sgt Duggan said the group handed him a dossier containing photos and text messages between Bowen and the alleged 14-year-old girl, who was in fact a decoy adult working for the UK-based paedophile hunter group, who said they had recorded their interactions with Bowen at the cafe.
The dossier revealed that Bowne had been communicating with the decoy girl from July 4th until July 26th and that over the course of these 22 days, he sent her photos of his penis, other adult genitalia and links to pornographic videos.
Sgt Duggan said Bowen described in text messages to the child how he would have sex with her, and he made great effort to convince this child to travel to Ireland, despite the decoy girl telling him from the outset that she was 14 and giving him ample opportunity to stop.
He said that after viewing the dossier, he spoke to Bowen after caution, and he agreed that he had come to the cafe for the purpose of having sex with the girl and he confirmed that they had exchanged text messages and photos of a sexual nature.
Pleading for leniency, defence barrister Paula McCarthy BL said her client was originally from Rhondda in South Wales but had come to Cork 10 years ago where he married but since this incident, his marriage had broken down and he no longer had any contact with his family.
She said he had co-operated fully with gardaí, gave them access to his phone and laptop and embarked on the Safer Lives programme, while he had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and had no previous convictions and had not come to Garda attention since the incident.
Judge Colin Daly said the sexual exploitation of a child was “a most heinous offence” and Bowen’s culpability was high in that he came with the expressed intention of having sex with what he believed was a 14-year-old girl and the court had to take a serious view of such offending.
He noted the offences carried a maximum sentence of 14 years, and he believed a headline sentence was one of five years but he would reduce that to 3½ years on foot of his guilty plea and would suspend the final two years in light of the other mitigating factors.
