A 49-year-old man who was caught with more than 35,000 child sex abuse images and 150 videos at his home in Clonakilty will be sentenced in May.
BY OLIVIA KELLEHER
Cork Circuit Criminal Court had previously heard that officers from the Garda’s protective services unit in Dunmanway went to the home of Paul Quinlan at Tawnies Lower in Clonakilty on April 29th in 2021.
They had received notification of the downloading of child sex abuse images by the accused.
Det Gda Brian Morris said that Mr Quinlan fully co-operated with gardaí when they arrived at his home.
He brought them to the main computer in the property, on which pictures and videos were stored.
Over 35,000 images and 150 videos were found by the officers.
4,896 images were deemed as being in the most serious category whilst the remainder were in category two.
Category one images relate to children witnessing or engaging in sexual conduct with adults.
The court heard that Mr Quinlan was not distributing the images.
However, he was engaging in searches, including dark web trawls, for the images.
On Wednesday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Sinead Behan said she was extremely concerned about the number of images involved in the case.
She also spoke of the importance of accessing assessment and treatment for Mr Quinlan.
Defence barrister Ray Boland said that Mr Quinlan was very remorseful for his behaviour and knew that his crime wasn’t victimless, but claimed the actual number of images involved was nearer to 20,000, rather than the 35,000 mentioned by gardaí, when ‘duplicates’ were factored in.
Mr Boland said that Mr Quinlan acknowledged that he needed treatment for his behaviour and was very remorseful.
Mr Boland asked if the judge might impose a suspended sentence, if Mr Quinlan agreed to have treatment.
Judge Behan said she would deal with sentencing on May 20th and Mr Quinlan would be remanded in custody until then.
