A MAN has been given a four-year suspended sentence after he pleaded guilty to possessing what a Garda computer expert described as some of the worst child pornography he had seen in more than 200 cases.
David Ivers (54), a single man from Rathcoursey East, Midleton, Co Cork, a former architectural technician with Cork City Council , was found to have downloaded 13,845 images of child pornography including 10,240 depicting naked children, some as young as one and many aged between one and six.
Det Garda Martin Hogan, of the computer crime unit at Harcourt Square, said that some of the images involved children being subjected to oral sex. “I found them grossly offensive. It had some of the worst content I have seen,” he said.
At the Circuit Criminal Court in Cork, Det Sgt Joe O’Connor of Midleton Garda station said the offence came to light after the operator of a German website reported a violation of child pornography laws to the German police who contacted gardaí. They traced the phone number to Ivers’s 84- year-old mother.
Gardaí searched the house on September 10th, 2007, and seized the computer which Ivers later revealed he had been using for three years to download child porn, said Det Sgt O’Connor. Ivers had no previous convictions and he did not believe he would re-offend.
Donal O’Sullivan, defending, said Ivers had co-operated fully with gardaí and pleaded guilty at the first opportunity. He also had gone to seek help from a psychiatrist in Cork before undergoing an 18-month treatment course at the Granada Institute in Dublin.
Mr O’Sullivan presented a report from the Granada Institute on the progress that Ivers had made. He also presented a report from psychiatrist Dr Rosemary Shinkwin and a report Dr Brian Jordan, Ivers’s mother’s GP.
Judge Patrick Moran said that he had viewed a sample of the images and found them deeply disturbing. as they depicted young children being severely violated and abused. He could not ignore the effect of this type of exploitation of young children for financial gain.
Judge Moran noted that Dr Jordan’s report pointed out that Ivers was his mother’s sole carer and that she was lonely, distraught and worried what she would do without him.
He also noted that Dr Shinkwin had communicated concern that Ivers had expressed suicidal thoughts.
Since reading the various reports, Judge Moran had altered his view considerably.
Questioning the value of a custodial sentence in the case, Judge Moran suspended the prison sentence on condition of good behaviour. He ordered that his name be placed on the sex offenders register for five years.
Ivers previously worked as an architectural technician with Cork City Council but took early retirement after he was suspended by the council when he was charged.