A FORMER senior Church of Ireland cleric who pleaded guilty to possessing 210 images of child pornography in the same files that contained sermons, homilies and documents relating to a Church of Ireland primary school in Roscrea received a three-year suspended sentence at Nenagh Circuit Criminal Court today.
The former rector of Roscrea (Diocese of Killaloe), canon Joseph Condell (60), pleaded guilty to knowingly possessing child pornography consisting of still images and movie files, at a sitting of the court last October.
Condell, who is retired from his ministry and now resigned from the Church of Ireland, was charged following a raid on the rectory in Roscrea when gardaí took away his computer and hard drive following a tip-off from the FBI.
Alex Owens SC told the court gardaí raided St Cronan's rectory in Roscrea on January 11th, 2002, and took away a Dell laptop and computer disks for further examination by gardaí attached to the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
Det James Madden told the court that Condell had not co-operated with the investigation and had to be arrested and conveyed to Thurles Garda station in November 2002, where he was questioned for 12 hours in relation to the computer files but exercised his right to silence.
Det Madden also told the court it was his opinion that while Condell had attended the Probation Services and the Granada Institute in Dublin to undergo rehabilitation, he was still in denial with regard to his actions.
Defence counsel Aileen Donnelly SC told the court Condell had pleaded guilty to the offence and that the majority of the images on the computer and disk contained images relating to children aged between eight and 14.
She reminded the court that there had been previous cases where suspended sentences had been handed down to people who had been convicted of possessing thousands of images of child pornography.
Passing sentence, Judge Tom Teehan said many of the type of images described by the prosecution were at the serious end of the scale, adding that Condell's eminent standing in the community had served to aggravate the offence.
"The ignominy he has suffered is itself a condign punishment. It will remain with him always and in that respect is a life sentence," Judge Teehan said before acknowledging that there had been a lack of remorse from Condell.
Imposing a three year custodial sentence, Jude Teehan suspended it on condition that Condell enter a bond to keep the peace for three years and continue to engage with the Granada Institute and the Probation Services.
He added that Condell should be kept under supervision for four years.
Condell was also placed on the sex offenders register.