A psychiatric nurse who made video tapes of himself engaged in sexual activities with children from the ages of four to 13 has been jailed for six years at the Circuit Criminal Court in Dublin by Judge Des Hogan.
Patrick Finbar Murphy gave the grandson of a couple he befriended eight bottles of Smirnoff Ice and recorded himself performing sexual acts with the boy.
Judge Des Hogan was told that the video also showed the young boy going to the toilet at one point and he could be heard getting sick.
Murphy also used a camcorder to film himself playing with a seven-year-old girl and two brothers, aged four and six, exposing their private parts to the camera as he babysat the three children in Co Sligo.
Murphy (58), with an address at Lower Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, but originally from Killarney, admitted three counts of using a child for sexual exploitation on camcorder cassettes, video discs and digital discs at addresses in Dublin and Sligo between June 1st, 1999 and October 31st, 2001.
He also pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing child pornography on October 31st, 2001. These included two magazines and computer discs and printouts with images of children.
Judge Hogan said it was the type of serious offence that warranted a custodial sentence and because none of the injured parties were willing to prepare victim impact reports it demonstrated to him they were too traumatised to relive their experiences.
"You connived your way into the trust and affection of the families of these children, who are the unfortunate victims," Judge Hogan told Murphy.
"Under the guise of acts of kindness you breached that trust in pursuance of your own base motives and sexual gratification and I have no doubt that this will have a lasting effect on the children involved and their parents.
"I have read the Book of Evidence and it makes for dismal and harrowing reading. I am aware you yourself have had an unhappy life but however scarred you must be yourself as a result of your upbringing, I am quite satisfied you knew what you were doing was wrong."
Det Garda Liam Maher told Mr Des Zaidan BL, prosecuting, that Murphy was convicted of possessing indecent photographs in London and jailed for four months in 1995. The following year he was jailed for 18 months on three charges of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy. He served only nine months.
Det Garda Maher said that all the children were extremely traumatised and none could talk about what happened. They were so devastated they couldn't even prepare victim impact reports.
Murphy alleged in his statement that he was sexually abused on a weekly basis by a brother while he was at St Patrick's Industrial School in Cork in the 1950s. He had spent his formative years in an orphanage in Cappoquin, Co Waterford.
He returned to the school when he was 20 with the intention of killing the brother only to learn he was already dead.
He later qualified as a psychiatric nurse and went to work in Our Lady's Psychiatric Hospital in Cork but he left in 1975 after "some incident".
He worked then in two orphanages in Waterford and in Cappoquin. He alleged that a nun tried to initiate sexual activities with him.
After that he moved to London where he again worked as a psychiatric nurse but later quit because of ill-health and worked in a bar in Wembley before returning to Ireland in 1997.