John Whelan given suspended sentence for child pornography possession

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Judge Martin Nolan suspended a three-year sentence for John Whelan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, subject to strict conditions including 18 months’ engagement with the Probation Service. The proceedings were reported on 14 May 2018.

Whelan pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography at his Dublin home on 20 March 2012. He also pleaded guilty to harassing eight women at the National Rehabilitation Hospital between 21 July 2011 and 5 January 2012.

Gardaí found the child pornography after Whelan handed over his laptop during the harassment investigation. Judge Nolan heard that Whelan had installed a hidden camera in a ladies’ locker-room shower and stored 885 images of the women in folders named after them. The laptop was forwarded for further analysis in 2012, but the reports did not return until 2016 because of a lack of resources.

Garda Sergeant Colm O’Giollain said more than 5,500 child pornographic images were found on the laptop. Defence counsel Vincent Heneghan said the images were downloaded between 2009 and 2012 and accepted that six were horrific. O’Giollain agreed that Whelan had not come to garda attention since his previous appearance before Judge Nolan in 2012 and was not a concern to gardaí.

Judge Nolan said the overloaded Garda unit had left the case hanging over Whelan for four years. He referred to case law concerning suspended sentences where there was no evidence of distribution, a guilty plea and a lack of relevant convictions. He was satisfied that the chance of Whelan reoffending was low.