Former HSE manager jailed for six years for sharing images of child sexual abuse – The Irish Times

A former HSE manager who, with other users of the Kik messaging service, fantasized about raping children and making them cry was sentenced to six years in prison by a Circuit Court judge on Monday.

Peter O’Malley (47), with an address at Hawthorn Place, Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, appeared before Judge Eoin Garavan at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court for sentencing.

O’Malley, who set up Covid clinics in Mayo and Roscommon at the height of the pandemic, pleaded guilty at an earlier court to 10 sample charges of distributing and possessing child pornography.

Some of the photographs were described by Det Gda Paula Griffin of the Mayo Divisional Protective Services Unit as images of ‘extreme depravity’.

The offenses were committed over a period of 22 months, between January 2020 and October 2021.

O’Malley, who runs the online messaging site Kik, asked a user if he could have sexual intercourse with his 12-year-old daughter.

In another case, he described how he wanted to abuse the two-year-old baby of a user he was talking to.

The earlier court was told O’Malley was knowingly involved in five online conversations with children under the age of 18 from Co Cork and Co Kilkenny.

His personal phone contained 128,791 images, of which approximately 70 percent were pornographic, legal and illegal. The phone contained 249 images of child pornographic material, including 62 images of Category 1 and 44 images of Category 2 content.

The Category 1 images contained content of children aged 3 to 17 years old who were involved in or witnessed sexually explicit activities, including children being sexually abused by adults.

The Category 2 images contained content in which children’s genitals were visible and in which they were in sexual poses.

During today’s hearing, Judge Garavan said O’Malley was the administrator/facilitator of the Kik site and noted the explicit and depraved nature of the photos over the 22-month period.

He said the suspect had demonstrated an ongoing obsession with pornography and exploitation in a significant way.

Judge Garavan added that as the administrator of the Kik app, the suspect decided who could join the group from September 2020.

It wasn’t cash, the judge noted, it wasn’t commercial. Providing photographs created a market, or certainly an incentive, for the purchase of additional material, which ultimately led to children around the world being abused and photographed.

Judge Garavan described the footage as very graphic and said some of the victims had screamed and cried.

He continued: “Anyone’s heart would break to see these children – I have not seen the photos but accept the description of them – very upset or disturbed because they had been penetrated or even subjected to other sexual activities .”

The judge added that the suspect was ultimately a member of some kind of pedophile ring – not by committing sexual violence – but by sharing and distributing children who were sexually abused “in a manner tantamount to torture.”

O’Malley was suspended from the HSE in February 2022 after being arrested by gardaí following a tip-off from FBI investigators about his activity on the social media app Kik.

Judge Garvan today imposed a six-year prison sentence and ordered three years of post-release supervision and supervision under the Probation Service.

He also stipulated that O’Malley must obtain prior approval from gardaí or the probation service in relation to the possession, use or access of smartphones or other digital devices following his release.

He must also authorize gardaí to inspect such devices.

The prison sentence was backdated to October 21 last year, when O’Malley was first taken into custody by Judge Garavan.