A former garda presenter on RTÉ's Crimelineprogrammed has begun a nine-months prison sentence for soliciting a 12-year-old girl in a Limerick brothel for sex.
Judge Patricia Ryan today told the ex-Malahide garda sergeant, Gerard Lynch, she could see no reason for reducing the sentence imposed by the District Court.
She said Lynch (42) had fully contested the charge in the District Court before having belatedly entered a plea of guilty during his appeal to the Circuit Court.
Judge Ryan was told by Lynch's counsel, Mr John Peart, SC, that since having been caught in a garda "sting" operation in the Limerick brothel in 1999 Lynch had lost his job, his home, his wife, his pension and car and had brought great hurt upon his family.
The court had already heard how a woman garda had posed, in blonde wig and plain clothes, as a brothel keeper capable of supplying Lynch with a 12-year-old girl for sex.
A video of a conversation between the garda and Lynch in a bedroom in a brothel known as Erotica, Elm Street, Limerick, had been shown to the court identifying Lynch sitting on a bed talking to Sgt Anne Marie Mc Mahon about the girl.
The video also showed Superintendent John Kerins later entering the bedroom and arresting Lynch.
Halfway through his Circuit Court appeal Lynch had entered a plea of guilty and his case had been adjourned to facilitate medical and psychological examination and the provision of reports for the court.