Sentencing of a former civil servant who downloaded child pornographic images has been adjourned to allow him apply for Health Service Executive funding for psychotherapy treatment at the Granada Institute.
Gerard McMahon (53), a divorced father of six, The Richmond off North Brunswick Street, was earlier warned by Judge Yvonne Murphy at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that she would impose a custodial sentence unless he began psychotherapy at the institute as previously intimated.
The images he downloaded had been described as "amongst the worst that have ever come before the courts".
Judge Murphy had been told by defence counsel Martin Dully that his client had not been attending at the institute as previously ordered because he had "a very large number of difficulties" that he had been trying to deal with and did not feel he was capable of undergoing such treatment.
Mr Dully said his client had been attending a consultant psychiatrist and was now in a position to attend for group psychotherapy sessions at the institute but he would need to be treated for 18 months to two years at a cost of €90 a week. Mr Dully said although McMahon was willing to undergo the session he could not afford it due to "serious financial difficulties".
Judge Murphy agreed to adjourn the case to next March to see if there was any likelihood of McMahon securing the HSE funding. McMahon has pleaded guilty to five counts of possession of child pornography on dates in March 2002.
Det Sgt James Madden said the images were of "a graphic and horrific nature and fall into the very serious end of the child pornography scale". He did not accept a suggestion by Mr Dully that McMahon showed "self-disgust" for his participation in these offences. "I saw no evidence of that whatsoever."
He accepted Mr Dully's submission that McMahon had not created any files to retain these images but had mostly accessed and deleted them after he viewed them. The only exception were six "very graphic images" which he saved into a password-protected zip file.
Det Sgt Madden agreed with Mr Dully that McMahon was a very lonely and isolated individual.