A FORMER Cork secondary school principal has been jailed for three months and has had his named placed on the register of sex offenders after he was caught with child pornography on his home computer in Cork.
Retired teacher Tony Canniffe (62) had pleaded guilty earlier this year to possession of almost 300 images of child pornography at his home at Rosegarth, Donnybrook, Douglas, Cork, on October 16th, 2008.
At Cork District Court yesterday, Canniffe’s barrister, Sinéad Behan, pleaded for leniency for her client, pointing out that it was his first offence and that he had worked for 30 years as a teacher in contact with young people and there had never been any problem or complaint.
Ms Behan said Canniffe had felt a sense of isolation and depression after his retirement from teaching and, with time now on his hands, began accessing the internet where he first began looking at adult pornography, then at child pornography.
She pointed out that he had gone for 30 counselling sessions at a clinic in Scotland where he now lived, and he now realised the harm that his action had caused children.
A probation report had indicated that he was at a low risk of reoffending.
However, Judge Con O’Leary said Canniffe seemed unwilling to accept responsibility for his actions, instancing how he blamed being separated from his mother and sent to a seminary at a young age for a sense of isolation which he said he felt.
Judge O’Leary said Canniffe had known what he was doing was wrong and unlawful, while he also knew from being a teacher how vulnerable children could easily be damaged.
“This is not somebody who was on the fringes of breaking the law since early childhood – this is somebody who was secure in society . . . he was an educated man who made a decision to take advantage of these children who were quite brutally abused,” said Judge O’Leary.
He sentenced Canniffe to 10 months in jail, but suspended the final seven months on condition that he comply with any direction given by his counsellor in Scotland upon his release.
Mr Canniffe was later released from custody after he lodged an appeal against the jail sentence.
Last April, Det Garda Martin Hogan of the computer crime unit at Harcourt Square told how investigators classified child pornography on a scale of one to five, depending on how the children were dressed and positioned and what acts they were forced to perform.
Det Garda Hogan said he examined Canniffe’s computer and found 289 images at level two and six files at level four