July 2019 Suspended sentence for man who pleaded guilty to possessing 531 child abuse images A 41-year old Shannon man has had to move house twice since his child pornography  downloading offences were made public. That is according to counsel for Ciaran Moore, Brian McInerney BL, who said that his client now faces “a life sentence of condemnation and opprobrium within the society in which he lives”. Mr Moore has pleaded guilty to the possession of 531 child explicit images and 24 child explicit movies at his former home in the greater Tullyvarraga area of Shannon, Co Clare.  Addressing Ennis Circuit Court, Mr McInerney said that society “is not happy about Mr Moore residing in the neighbourhood and that has led to Mr Moore having to move house on two separate occasions”. He said: “Cases of this nature receive very extensive media coverage as this has done. This will become once again a live issue as the members of the fourth estate are lined up – doubtless editors are waiting to put some lurid headline over the piece and doubtless photographers are lurking in the vicinity to take more photographs.” Mr McInerney said: “Of course they are entitled to this – that is the democracy we live in, but that will have an impact on the accused.” Mr McInerney said that Mr Moore’s “employment chances are great prejudiced – any CV that includes a conviction such as this would be thrown into the waste paper basket by any employer”. Mr Moore walked free from court after Judge Gerald Keys imposed a three-year suspended jail term on the man. Judge Keys said that a factor in not imposing a jail term was the “undue delay” by the State in prosecuting the case. The offences took place on October 31st and November 1st 2012 and a lack of resources at the time at the Garda Cyber Crime unit in examining the computer evidence contributed to the delay in the case coming to court. Judge Keys said: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” Mr Moore first pleaded guilty to the offences in June of last year and the case was adjourned from last November for the preparation of a psychiatric report on Mr Moore which has found that he is not suffering from any psychiatric illness. Mr McInerney said that Mr Moore had suggested to gardaí that he was “a paedophile hunter” as the reason for downloading the child porn. Mr Moore told gardaí that he reported the child pornography to websites but could not provide the names of those websites. Mr Moore told gardaí that he “was saving the child porn as it might be needed as evidence in any future investigation”. However, Judge Keys rejected that Mr Moore was downloading the child porn images as part of a crusade against those producing child pornography. Judge Keys said: “I fail to see how this personal crusade of yours could have assisted law enforcement agencies to prevent downloading this type of material.” Mr McInerney said Mr Moore “spent far too much time in a dark room on a computer and should have been doing other things”. Judge Keys said that Mr Moore had pleaded guilty, has no previous convictions, co-operated with gardaí and has shown remorse. In evidence, expert witness, Det Garda Ciara Scully of the Garda National Cyber Crime Unit said that some of the images found include girls as young as three and four in sexually explicit activity. Det Scully said that other images show male adults engaging in penetrative sex with pre-pubescent children in videos. Det Scully said that Mr Moore had encrypted the child pornography  material and it took gardaí two years to break a password on a computer that led to more child pornography  images. The password on the computer was “Iampowerful.” Counsel for the State, Lorcan Connolly BL raised concerns over the psychiatric report where Mr Moore stated  that he accepted what he did was technically breaking the law and doesn’t believe that he requires treatment. Mr Moore denied any sexual interest in male or female children and denied watching any material depicting the sexual abuse of children for sexual purposes.  November 2018 Man tells court he was using downloaded indecent images and movies of children as young as three to identify those making it A 41-year-old Shannon man told gardaí that he was downloading child sexual abuse images as part of an effort to identify those involved in producing indecent images of children At Ennis Circuit Court today, counsel for the State, Lorcan Connolly BL said that Ciaran Moore tried to portray to gardaí in interviews that his viewing and downloading of child sexual images “was part of a crusade” against those producing child pornography. In the case, Ciaran Moore pleaded guilty to the possession of 531 child explicit images and 24 child explicit movies at his home in Shannon. The offences took place on October 31, 2012, and November 1, 2012. In evidence today, expert witness, Det Garda Ciara Scully of the Garda National Cyber Crime Unit said that some of the images found include girls as young as three and four in sexually explicit activity. Det Scully said that other images show male adults engaging in penetrative sex with pre-pubescent children in videos. She said that a number of websites contained child pornography were accessed by Mr Moore. Det. Scully said that the images detected would be at the upper level of child pornography images available. She also said that 20,000 images of child models in various poses were also found on Mr Moore’s computers, which was not an offence, but Mr Connolly said the presence of 20,000 such images was indicative of a sexual interest in children. Det. Scully said that Mr Moore had encrypted the child pornography material and it took gardaí two years to break a password on a computer that led to more child porn images. The password on the computer was “Iampowerful.” Mr Connolly said that Mr Moore in Garda interviews said that he downloaded and saved the child pornography to identify those in making child pornography. Mr Connolly said that Mr Moore told gardaí that he reported the child abuse images to websites but could not provide the names of those websites. Mr Moore said that he didn’t leave his contact details with these websites. Mr Connolly said that Mr Moore had never reported the child pornography to the gardaí or any law enforcement agency. According to Mr Connolly, Mr Moore told gardaí that he “was saving the child porn as it might be needed as evidence in any future investigation”. Mr Connolly said that Mr Moore told gardaí that he has strong feelings about sexual abuse as someone close to him at the time had been abused when she was a girl. Mr Connolly said that at one stage in the Garda interview, Mr Moore was asked why there were only images of young female children on his computers as opposed to young male children. In reply, Mr Moore stated that he was“too busy trying to save girls from these situations without having to look at violent images of boys also”. However, Det. Garda Paul Coleman said that there was no evidence that Mr Moore has contacted any website and that his viewing of child porn took place years before he became close to the person who he claimed was sexually abused. Mr Connolly said that Mr Moore denied accessing the child pornography for his own gratification. Counsel for Mr Moore, Brian McInerney BL said this client is “a Walter Mitty-type character”. He said: “Based on the reporting issues, he is somewhat of a fantasist. He didn’t make any malicious pre-planned lies – he believes a lot of what he is saying.” “He tried to mitigate and it was a stupid attempt to mitigate in reality.” Mr McInerney said that Mr Moore now lives away from Shannon – Det. Coleman said that up until moving away, Mr Moore had been living at his parents’ home with his girlfriend and his parents. Mr McInerney said that a psychiatric report on his client is not yet ready and Judge Keys remanded Mr Moore on bail to Ennis Circuit Court later this year for the completion of the sentencing hearing.