Padraig Shortt receives suspended sentence for child pornography

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

Padraig Shortt received a fully suspended three-year sentence for possession of child pornography at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 25 January 2022. Judge Pauline Codd imposed the sentence and suspended it in its entirety on strict conditions, including that he follow all directions of the Probation Service for two years.

Shortt pleaded guilty to the charge. The proceedings were reported on 25 January 2022. The offence concerned possession at his Templeogue address on 17 March 2016, and the report said he had no previous convictions.

The report said 4,072 images and 200 videos were found across devices belonging to Shortt. Detective Garda John Walsh said 22 videos depicted children being sexually abused, while the remaining 178 showed children with their genitals exposed. Shortt said he had thought he was deleting images when he inadvertently emailed the material and denied knowingly distributing child pornography. Defence counsel James Dwyer SC said Shortt had suffered significant injuries and memory problems after a 2008 traffic collision, had expressed remorse and was assessed as a low risk of reoffending.