Courts / Dublin / Report

Backlog behind three-year delay in child porn case

Date
2018-05-16

Stage
Sentence

Primary locality
Dublin

County
Dublin

Summary

Cathal Forde, 52, of Buttercup Park, Darndale, was sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for possessing 4,168 images of child pornography, including 34 movie files, and for distributing such material between 19 May 2011 and 11 January 2013. He also pleaded guilty to producing child pornography on 20 December 2012. Garda Brian Healy traced Forde to two email addresses used to purchase DVDs of naked children from a Canadian company, leading to a search warrant. During the search, Forde admitted possession of child porn, surrendered a computer hard drive, CDs, DVDs, passwords, and two laptops. Forensic examination uncovered over 1,000 explicit images, some of children as young as six months, and two text documents he had sent to contacts. The case took three years to reach court due to a backlog in the relevant Garda unit.

Who, what, where, when and why

What: Report matter: Backlog behind three-year delay in child porn case. Charges or matters: possession of 4,168 images, including 34 movie files, depicting child porn at his home on January 11, 2013; distributing child porn at his address on dates between May 19, 2011 and January 11, 2013; producing child pornography on December 20, 2012. Procedural stage: sentence

When:

January 11, 2013 Incident
May 19, 2011 Incident
December 20, 2012 Other
2018-05-16 Publication

Case subjects

Cathal Forde

Defendant

Charges: possession of 4,168 images, including 34 movie files, depicting child porn at his home on January 11, 2013; distributing child porn at his address on dates between May 19, 2011 and January 11, 2013; producing child pornography on December 20, 2012 (Admitted)

Plea: Guilty

Outcome: He asked the judge to impose the "smallest sentence" possible.