Most individuals investigated for child pornography offences in Ireland have never come to the attention of gardaí before, according to a new UCD report for the Department of Justice.
It finds that suspects are as liable to be living with a partner as they are to be single.
Information on 153 cases contained in the DPP's files was provided to the authors of the report, which is published today. While 57 of these cases led to a conviction, 55 - or over one-third - led to no prosecution.
In a further 30 cases, the sentence was either not known, was pending or the suspect had fled the country or died.
Child pornography and the Criminal Justice System, by Prof Ian O'Donnell and Claire Milner of UCD's Institute of Criminology, analysed the progress of child pornography cases through the criminal justice system over a five-year period. The authors had unprecedented access, on a confidential basis, to investigating gardaí, information contained in DPP files and judges involved in the hearing of such cases between 2000 and 2004 under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998.
Of the cases where a conviction was secured, 12 led to immediate imprisonment, 18 led to a suspended sentence, four led to a fine, and one each led to probation or community service. In 21 cases, the sentence was unknown.
The pornographic content found by investigating officers was mainly photographic and ranged from erotic nudity to sadism and bestiality, and from one to more than 10,000 images. In two-thirds of available cases, the number of images found was 11-500. Gardaí gave detailed information relating to their investigation of 138 individuals who were suspected of child pornography offences during the period in question. The study shows that over one-fifth of these cases did not proceed to the next stage.
The study showed that 80 per cent of those investigated by gardaí have no previous convictions, while just 5 per cent had a previous conviction for sexual offences. The majority of cases (83 per cent) which appeared before the courts during the period, related to possession of pornographic material involving minors.
Other key findings include:
- All those prosecuted were males, with an average age of 39 and ranging from 15 to 65 years old;
- Most suspects/offenders investigated by gardaí lived in Leinster (63 per cent) and Munster (31 per cent). Overall, 43 per cent were resident in Dublin.
- Most suspects had no children (61 per cent).