Tom Humphries jailed for grooming and sexual abuse

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

Tom Humphries was jailed for two-and-a-half years at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 24 October 2017 for grooming and sexually abusing a girl. The offending took place in Dublin, after Humphries exchanged at least 16,000 messages with her during a three-month period. He pleaded guilty to two counts of child defilement and four counts of inviting a child to participate in a sexually explicit, obscene or indecent act.

Judge Karen O’Connor imposed concurrent terms of two-and-a-half years for defilement and two years for the grooming offences. She backdated the sentence to the beginning of his custody three weeks earlier and declined to impose post-release supervision.

The court considered his guilty plea and other mitigating factors, while identifying the age disparity, his position and the impact on the injured party as aggravating factors.