March 2004 Man jailed for child rape catalogue A MAN who pleaded guilty to possessing more than 100 disturbing images of child pornography, including young girls being sexually abused in horrific ways, was sentencedto six months in jail yesterday. Judge John Brophy at Navan District Court described the case as one of the most difficulthe had encountered in his career and likened it to the Marc Dutroux case in Belgium. John Markey (34) of Blackcastle Avenue, Navan, Co Meath, pleaded guilty in December2002 to one count of possessing child pornography contrary to the Child and Pornography Act 1998. Judge Brophy said some of the images involving girls as young as four in various sexualposes had made him “physically ill”. They included images of abuse by dogs and adultmen. “I cannot say in my lifetime I have ever seen anything so revolting and disgusting and degrading for the children involved,” he told the court. Some of the images included elements of rape, attempted rape, and bestiality. Markey, a father of a two-year-old, was arrested as part of Operation Amethyst after his home was raided on May 27, 2002. He used his credit card to pay for and download stillimages and movie files from the internet. Evidence was given from a therapist at theGranada Institute where Markey had attended an 11-month programme. Psychologist Davina Walsh, who admitted she hadn’t seen the images, described him as a “low risk offender” who had no interest in abusing children. Defence Counsel Pat Reilly said his client’s life had been turned upside down as a resultof the court case, which forced him to give up a [euro]50,000 job and move to Dublin. He had admitted his guilt at the first available opportunity and knew his behaviour wasdespicable, but had made every effort to address it. Rejecting a plea for leniency, Judge Brophy said anyone prepared to give their credit card number and download the material he saw could only be described as a paedophile. “I physically felt like getting sick. That’s how badly it affected me. It’s one of the mostdifficult cases I have dealt with in thirteen-and-a-half years on the bench. At this point in time, I should have refused jurisdiction and sent him to judge and jury,” he said. “No ordinary person in their right mind could look at this material. I felt sickened and revolted. You do not look at a little four or five-year-old girl with a giant mastiff attemptingto have sex with her. That is out of the norm.” The people that were hurt were the innocent children Markey had paid to see, who would have been sold to paedophiles or kidnapped and forced to carry out disgusting acts, he said. He expressed concern about recent research which revealed that 30pc of activepaedophiles on the internet would try to re-enact in real life the images they saw, and said he felt he should have refused jurisdiction in the case. He sentenced Markey to six months in prison and placed him on the Sex Offenders Register for a period of three years while kept under supervision.