An unemployed man with a masters degree in philosophy, who downloaded 350 child pornography images from the Internet, has been given a three-year suspended sentence.
Adrian Savage (41), from Millwood Terrace, Meath Road, Bray, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday to knowingly having possession of the images which showed adolescent girls aged between 12 and 16.
He was stopped by gardaí on February 9th, 2002, after they observed him entering an Internet cafe on Dame street in Dublin where he stayed from 10 p.m. until 10 a.m. the following morning.
Det Sgt Mark Kavanagh told Mr Hugo Hynes SC, prosecuting, at an earlier hearing, that the girls pictured were either fully or semi-naked and eight of the pictures were close-ups of young female genitalia. Savage admitted to having more explicit pictures in his home.
Defence counsel Mr Brendan Grehan SC told Judge Desmond Hogan that his client had been receiving treatment under the Lighthouse Programme run by the Granada Institute in conjunction with the Probation and Welfare Service.
Mr Grehan said Savage had made excellent progress and had examined his offending behaviour in an open and honest fashion. A report from the programme had concluded that he did not meet the diagnostic criteria of paedophilia.
Judge Hogan said that offences of this type were very serious but he accepted that Savage had not known that the images were illegal when he began downloading them.
Savage took his Leaving Certificate again in his late 20s because he wasn't satisfied with his educational attainment. He subsequently obtained a masters in philosophy from Trinity College.
Judge Hogan fined Savage €500 and suspended the three-year jail term on condition that he continue to engage with the Lighthouse project and receive therapy there. He placed Savage's name on the sex offenders' register for five years.