A former Scottish policeman who distributed child pornographic images over the Internet has been jailed for three years by Judge Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Gordon Bowers (49), Pembroke Square, Grand Canal Street, Dublin, but originally from Glasgow, pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography on August 13th and October 9th, 2001, and to the possession of child pornography on March 22nd, 2002. He was traced to Dublin by the US authorities after using his credit card to purchase child pornographic images over the Internet.
Bowers was arrested at his Dublin apartment when gardaí seized various computer equipment containing 1,244 images and 76 movies involving naked and partially-clothed children, from infant age up to 16 engaged in sexual activities with adults.
They also found evidence that he had engaged in 3,000 chat-room sessions with "like-minded people" and distributed eight images to individuals with whom he had been communicating.
Judge Hogan, who viewed some of the images on a laptop in court, refused an application by counsel for Bowers to adjourn the sentence because he was receiving counselling in the Granada Institute; on balance he deserved a custodial sentence.
The judge said: "The mitigating factors in this case are that he fully co-operated with the gardaí and readily handed over the results of his activities in the form of floppy discs and other copies of the illegal pornographic materials he had accumulated. He also pleaded guilty.
"However, there is one question that is constant in my mind and that is how could a person contribute to and participate in what is nothing more that the irretrievable loss of innocence of young, vulnerable children for his own sense of voyeurism and sexual gratification."
Det Garda Geraldine McGoldrick told Mr Vincent Henaghan, prosecuting, that when Bowers was interviewed he gave the gardaí details of how he accessed the material and the passwords he would use to gain entry to websites. He admitted everything put to him by officers.
Garda McGoldrick said Bowers had been in the Merchant Navy and spent eight years in the Scottish police force. When he left he got a master's degree in business studies and came to Ireland five years ago to work as a management consultant.
His wife, Ann Bowers, who addressed the court on her husband's behalf, remained in Scotland but moved to Dublin in 2001 because she sensed her husband had changed emotionally. She told Judge Hogan that Bowers suffering severely from depression: "He wasn't living, he was surviving."
Mr Seán Gillane, for Bowers, said his client's job prospects diminished after moving to Dublin and he was alone in a foreign country. He became housebound and began spending his days working on his computer and communicating with other people in chat rooms.
Mr Gillane said Bowers found "he had touched the devil and couldn't let go". He had also planned to commit suicide but the intervention of one officer, who spoke to him over the phone, prevented him from doing so.
Counsel said Bowers and his wife had started an intensive course of counselling at the Granada Institute and they now placed him at the lower end of the scale in terms of reoffending.