A pensioner supplied vulnerable young women with heroin in exchange for them working as prostitutes as part of a “catalogue of offending”, a court has heard.
Belfast Crown Court was told Oliver James MacCormack is now facing a substantial jail sentence.
MacCormack (71) whose address was given as Maghaberry Prison, has pleaded guilty to 40 offences which include charges of human trafficking and controlling prostitution.
He also admitted a charge of perverting the course of justice, witness intimidation and offences of supplying class A drugs.
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During a sentencing hearing on Friday, it was said there were nine victims, some as young as 17 at the time of the offences, and one had since died.
Crown barrister Charles MacCreanor said the case followed an investigation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland‘s (PSNI) modern slavery and human trafficking unit. He said other men had already been sentenced following the same investigation.
“A feature of this case was that the victims were as young as 17, the victims were 17, 18, 19 and upwards,” Mr MacCreanor said.
“Many of the victims share a number of similarities in the position they were in, being in a low place in their lives, having significant personal difficulties.
“The defendant manoeuvred himself into position of making himself indispensable to the victims.
“He organised their jobs as sex workers, effectively he controlled them.
“He used the victims like commodities to be sold in order to financially benefit himself.
“The victims were heroin addicts who were repeatedly provided by him with heroin in return for sexual services.
“He capitalised on their drug use and their vulnerability and a lack of means by which they could fund their own drugs habits by how he dealt with them.”
Mr MacCreanor said: “He regularly collected them, drove them around to others, arranged the provision of sexual services.
“Organising meetings for them with men willing to pay for sexual services regardless of the physical state of these young women, who were often high on drugs or often in withdrawal.
“Many of the victims have reported being under the influence of drugs when they provided sexual services to the defendant, his friends and clients in return for heroin and some money.”
The barrister pointed out that one of the victims has since died, and said there was a pattern of “extreme vulnerability of these young women”.
He continued: “The victims had variously described the defendant as pimping them, sexually trafficking them and controlling them.
“We say he created a cycle whereby the victims became dependant on him not only to earn a living but as their supplier of heroin.
“He was engaged in exploitative and manipulative conduct to allow him to commercially engage in prostitution.”
The barrister said the offending continued from 2015 until 2022 and would have gone on but for MacCormack’s detection by police.
He rejected a defence submission that the offending was “opportunistic”.
Pointing out the offending had continued for seven years, Judge Gordon Kerr said: “That’s an awful lot of opportunities.”
Mr MacCreanor said: “It was a catalogue of offending.”
Defence barrister Michael Chambers said his client is a man in his 70s with significant health issues.
He pointed out that MacCormack should be afforded credit for his guilty pleas.
The barrister said he had no doubt the judge would pass a “substantial custodial sentence” in the case.
He said his client had been in custody since April 2022.
The judge said he gained the impression from pre-sentence reports that MacCormack was “not exactly expressing great remorse”.
The defence barrister said it was “difficult to argue” with that but his client had met the charges with guilty pleas.
The judge said he would take time to consider the submissions.
He listed the case for April 3rd when he said he would either sentence MacCormack or set a date for his sentencing. – PA
