A man's interest in adult pornography developed to looking at images involving children when he bought a computer and started accessing the Internet, a court heard yesterday.
Darren Phelan (33), Griffeen Glen Grove, Lucan, Co Dublin, pleaded guilty to having 120 images on computer disks on March 23rd last year.
Sgt Martin Mooney told Dublin District Court gardaí were alerted by the US postal service as part of Operation Amythst.
Phelan had used his Visa credit card to access a site called Landslide Productions.
The images, 16 of which were shown to the judge yesterday, were at the "lower end" of the child pornographic scale, involving teens rather than younger children, Sgt Mooney said.
When gardaí arrived at his door, he told them where the images were on CD-roms and floppy disks. He later made a full statement admitting the offence.
The court heard Phelan was married with a child but he had to move out of the family home soon after these offences came to light. He had limited access to his child as a result of separate family law court proceedings and feared he would now lose his job because of publicity.
He had attended the Granada Institute which treats people with sexual addictions and a report from it was handed into court.
His solicitor said while he had an interest in adult pornography from an early age, it was only when he bought a computer three years ago that he developed an interest in child pornography from surfing the Internet.
Judge David Anderson adjourned the matter for six months for a probation report and for an updated report from the Granada Institute.