Man who watched girl being abused on video call gets five years

A man who went on a video call with other men to watch a young Irish girl being sexually abused by her stepfather has been jailed for five years.

David Kelly (38) appeared at Donegal Circuit Court where he was charged with two charges of possession of child pornography and two charges of distribution of child pornography.

Kelly, from Magheracar Cottages, Bundoran, was caught with more than 2,000 images of children being abused as well as videos of similar abuse.

Kelly was caught when the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children received a report that two images of children had been uploaded to a certain IP address.

When gardaí raided his house on April 11th, 2016, he ran to the bathroom and tried to hide a laptop under the bath.

Gardaí managed to access the computer and other software and Kelly made full admissions. On May 17th, 2016, Kelly went to gardaí and provided them with details of his activities and those of a man in Dublin.

The man was secretly filming his step-daughter as he abused her and was sharing the images and videos online with others.

Det Garda Mark Deavin told the court the Dublin man had since been convicted in the courts.

He revealed how Kelly and the other man, who cannot be named, shared 84 files between two online accounts, 74 of these were sent from Kelly and the Dublin man sent 10 files back.

All these files contained images of sexual abuse as well as movies of children being sexually abused.

Of the 180 movies found on Kelly’s computers, 145 were category one which meant they depicted children under 17 years engaging in sexual acts with children or adults.

The other 35 movies were classed in category 2 which showed children’s genital or anal areas but which did not show any sexual abuse.

Barrister Patricia McLaughlin, for the State, also said there were transcripts of Skype calls between Kelly and the other man with references to drugging the 13-year-old so that she could be raped.

Kelly is also heard asking the man to drug and rape the child and requests that he record it on Skype so that it can be shared.

The accused was also recorded asking the Dublin man to film himself abusing his nieces who were between three and five years old.

‘Changed man’

Barrister for Kelly, Declan McHugh, said he was not trying to excuse or lessen the seriousness of what Kelly had done and the effects it had had on all the children involved. He said his client was a changed man.

“He is deeply remorseful and ashamed of what he has done and is under no illusions about the gravity of it. He knows that society views these actions against children right up there on the scale of offences that we know,” said Mr McHugh.

Kelly had worked for 14 years in Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel but had returned to the seaside town in which he grew up.

Judge John Aylmer said the offences merited sentences of eight years and five years, putting them at both the higher range and mid-range of such offences.

He said the case deserved a sentence of eight years in prison.

However, in mitigation, he said Kelly came before the court with no previous convictions, was remorseful and ashamed, had co-operated fully with gardaí and had received up to 36 counselling sessions as part of his rehabilitation.

He said he would reduce the sentence to six years in prison with the final year suspended upon agreement that the accused be of good behaviour for two years after he is released.

Kelly will also be placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.