A MAN caught with more than 10,000 pornographic images showing "very young children in very graphic acts" has been fined €1,000 and given a three-year suspended sentence.
The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said the sentence was too lenient.
Colm Carty (39), Channel Road, Rush, Co Dublin, came to the attention of Austrian police who then alerted gardaí. He pleaded guilty to possession of the images at his home in February 2007. He told gardaí his behaviour was "at the level of fantasy but he had no intention of bringing it to reality".
Judge Desmond Hogan noted that Carty had been diagnosed with a personality disorder. The judge suspended the sentence on condition he continued treatment.
Det Sgt Maura Walsh told Úna Ní Raifeartaigh, prosecuting, that Carty admitted it was a compulsion and he got excited by doing something wrong, as he never even got a parking ticket before.
While Carty told gardaí that he was mainly interested in children aged between 12 and 16 years, the significant portion of the images were of very young children.
Caroline Biggs, defending, asked Judge Hogan to accept that his case was comparable to the difference between a drug user and a dealer.
"Although he still engages in the industry to feed his addiction, he does not do so for commercial gain," she said.
Ms Biggs said the report indicated he was at a modest risk of reoffending because he struggled to understand the impact child pornography had on those depicted.
The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said it believed the sentence was very lenient "given the volume and depravity of images".
"For each picture taken, there is a child being abused, someone's son or daughter is being abused in order to fill the demand for such images," the society said.
It added that these pictures should be called abusive pictures of children, not child pornography. People who downloaded were effectively paying someone to continue abusing a child.