A Garda sergeant who denies seeking a 13-year-old girl for sex in a Limerick brothel claimed he was involved in a solo investigation into the sexual exploitation of a missing child, a court heard yesterday.
Sgt Gerard Lynch (37), formerly one of the Garda presenters on RTE's Crimeline, is pleading not guilty to soliciting for the purposes of prostitution at an Elland Street escort agency on June 12th last year.
Dublin District Court heard he was videotaped discussing with an undercover garda posing as a brothel "madame" how he would be prepared to have sex with girls as young as eight if he could get them. On the day he was arrested in the brothel, called "Erotica", he was hoping to meet a 13-year-old named Tonya for sex costing £250.
When senior officers walked in on him just as he was expecting the girl to arrive, he was found to have brought a tube of KY lubricating jelly, a woman's G-string knickers and had £250 cash in his shirt pocket.
He immediately claimed he was "actually doing a file on this" but admitted he had never discussed it with his senior officers.
In an interview later, he claimed he had embarked on the investigation on his own initiative after reading in The Irish Times that escort agencies were supplying underage girls to clients.
Sgt Lynch, who is based in Malahide, told another person he was carrying out the investigation after receiving information that a girl missing from his locality was working in a brothel with other young girls in Limerick or Longford.
He said he had been naive in not informing his superiors about the investigation.
He claimed conversations, taped by gardai before he went to the Limerick brothel and while he was there concerning the type of girls he wanted, were "part of the investigative procedure - I would never harm a child".
The KY jelly he brought with him to the brothel was not for having sex with a child but to provide relief should his ongoing health condition (Crohn's disease, which affects the bowel) flare up.
The knickers he had with him belonged to his wife and he had taken them by mistake when leaving his home that morning as it was dark.
He always carried spare underpants in case of diarrhoea, a condition of Crohn's disease.
The court was shown secretly taped video footage of Lynch, sitting on the edge of a bed in the brothel. He boasted of having had sex with three underage girls, including a 12-year-old in Galway.
He suggested to the "madame" having an ongoing arrangement with the brothel where he could meet girls up to once every 10 days.
He also suggested bringing one of them away for weekends to a house in Ennis owned by one of his friends.
He was heard discussing the way he would like to have sex with "Tonya".
In a phone conversation before arriving at the brothel he talked with the "madame" about the youngest girls that could be supplied.
When the "madame" suggested that eight was the youngest she could supply he replied: "I would not use anybody younger myself either."
The court also heard that gardai checked Lynch's home and mobile phone bills and found he regularly rang brothels and sex lines. There were over 400 calls to one dating agency.
The trial continues.