‘Complete and absolute abomination’: man who distributed child sex abuse material should ‘expect to go to prison’

A man who uploaded videos of child sex abuse on victims as young as eight to the social media app, Kik, is due to reappear before Mullingar Circuit Court.

Steve Jennings (34), with an address at Gleann Petit Park, Mullingar, County Westmeath, appeared before Judge Keenan Johnson, where he pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child sex abuse material on dates between February 15 and 20, 2024, via the social media app.

Possession of child sex abuse material attracts a maximum sentence of five years, and distribution of the material attracts a maximum of 14 years in prison.

Giving his evidence to the court, Detective Garda David Mead, with the Protective Services Unit for Westmeath and Meath, told Cathal O’Braonáin, BL, prosecuting, that gardaí were notified by the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding a profile on Kik under the name Dantfan92, which was connected to an email of the same name.

The court heard that the profile had uploaded a total of 15 videos which portrayed varying degrees of child sex abuse, including masturbation and anal rape, to the site over the course of five days. The videos lasted between 14 and 37 seconds and featured female children believed to be between the ages of eight and 13 years old being abused by adult men.

The National College of Ireland IT specialist was fully cooperative when gardaí searched his home and seized his devices, including a laptop, phone, tablet and hard drive. The only device which had child sex abuse material was his phone, which contained a single video of a female child aged between 10 and 14 lying on a bed, exposed and masturbating.

The accused man began using the site for adult pornography, the court heard, but said he encountered child sex abuse material on the site.

He used chat rooms on the site to share between 500 and 1,000 images and videos which featured mainly adult pornography, Det Gda Mead explained, but for every five videos uploaded, there would be one featuring child sex abuse.

There were also more than 2,000 explicit messages exchanged on the site, approximately half of which were sent by the accused, over the course of the five days. In those messages, he expressed he preferred teens.

The court heard that he shared the material to ensure he was not removed from the chat group for not participating.

Senior Counsel John Hayden, told the court that the accused has been attending psychotherapy at the Thinkwell Clinic, and suffered trauma from his own childhood, including grooming in his mid-teens by a woman in America, whom he met in an online chat room.

His behaviour was “rooted in unprocessed childhood trauma”, which occurred during his crucial development years, but his offences “lifted a lid” and he has engaged in self-help by attending psychotherapy.

Judge Johnson, having heard the evidence, said that the reality is, when somebody distributes this type of material, “it’s hard to avoid a custodial sentence”.

“This is just a complete and absolute abomination and the courts have to make it abundantly clear that anyone who engages in this type of offending will go to prison to deter others from doing it,” he said.

“It’s the seediest of seediest industries and anyone who distributes this material is contributing to that industry.”

Mr Jennings, who has no prior convictions and was remorseful for his actions, will reappear before the court in May when a probation report including a risk assessment will be furnished to the court.

“But on that day I will be finalising sentence and he needs to expect to go to prison that day,” Judge Johnson concluded.