A Dublin man has been jailed for life by Mr Justice Carney for raping a teenage boy and for five concurrent terms of 14 years on child pornography charges.
Mr Justice Carney, at the Central Criminal Court, also imposed five further terms of five years' imprisonment on the man for sexually assaulting several other young males and for possession of pornography.
Earlier, the judge stopped viewing a video recording made by the 42-year-old man of his activities with one of his victims, saying: "I cannot watch any more of this."
The single man, who was related to all his victims, pleaded guilty to the 11 charges on which he was sentenced and had six others taken into consideration. There were 26 charges on the indictment before the court.
He admitted buggering and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy on dates between January 1st, 1991, and December 31st, 1993, in Galway and at his home.
He also pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting three other boys on dates unknown between 1989 and 2000 in his home and in hotels around the country.
He also pleaded guilty to allowing children in his care to be used for the purposes of the production of child pornography and to producing child pornography on dates from 1998 to 2000.
Mr Justice Carney noted that as a result of a recent judgment by Mr Justice Geoghegan in the Court of Criminal Appeal he could impose consecutive sentences, but to do so would have meant a total sentence "of American proportions" and that wasn't done in this jurisdiction.
"The video evidence has been so disgusting that I, as the judge who handles some 140 cases in a year, could not go through with more than 10 minutes of it," he said.
The judge said the defendant was entitled to consideration for the manner in which he had met the charges through his guilty pleas, and he would not therefore impose consecutive sentences.
But he had no option other than to impose maximum sentences which would be concurrent.
He also directed that the man be listed as a sexual offender under the Sex Offenders Act, 2001, and that, although he had jailed him for life, "in the event of executive clemency at any later stage", he further directed that he remain under post-release supervision for 10 years.
Mr Patrick Marrinan SC (with Mr Raymond Farrell ), defending, had noted earlier that gardaí agreed that the defendant had not downloaded the pornographic material involving his victims on the Internet and that should be a relief to them.
The court heard that gardaí found 200,000 pornographic images on the defendant's computer and on CD-ROMs and floppy disks. Most of this involved adult pornography.
They also found 783 images of his abuse of the victims.
Mr Marrinan described the defendant as a man obsessed with his homosexuality, who had also become obsessed with downloading pornographic material from the Internet.
He had used the images he made of his victims solely for his own sexual gratification.
Mr Marrinan added that gardaí had confirmed in evidence that his client was not part of a ring but was a loner. He was a man who otherwise had been a hard worker all his life.
"He has lost his job, all his friends and virtually all that he has due to his offending. He has now lost his liberty as well," counsel added.
Relatives of the boys had wept in the public gallery of the court earlier, as details of the assaults and victim impact reports were read out.
One of the victims told Mr Justice Carney in evidence that the abuse had destroyed his confidence and his life.
"He has twisted my head around", he added.
The mother of two other victims said one of her sons who could have done well in school left early because he couldn't go any further.
The second boy had come to terms with the abuse but had been very depressed.
The victim impact reports indicated they felt betrayed by the man who used his relationship with them for his offending. They said they felt angry in some cases that none of their families knew what was happening and some said they felt isolated.
One of them said he had developed a drink and cannabis problem, which led to a heroin addiction for which he was under counselling.
The victims said they were generally relieved the matter had eventually come out, but some were fearful of being identified.
Victims also reported difficulty with relationships, including sexual relationship, and indicated feelings of sexual confusion.
Det Garda Mary Fallon told Mr Shane Murphy SC (with Ms Una Ní Raifeartaigh), prosecuting, that following receipt of a complaint from one of the victims in June 2000, gardaí searched the defendant's home on June 21st, 2000, and recovered a large amount of pornographic material.
Det Garda Fallon said the man's home was searched again on February 21st, 2001, and additional pornographic material was recovered.