A JUDGE has sentenced a 40-year-old County Clare man to four months in prison for sending a lewd image of himself to a Limerick woman.
In the case at Ennis District Court, Judge Alec Gabbett imposed three concurrent four-month prison terms on the accused for sending lewd pictures of himself to three “random” women around the country in Limerick, Dublin, and Kerry.
Judge Gabbett also imposed a one-month prison term on the accused after the man committed a solo sex act on the early Galway to Limerick train service in February 2023.
The man’s solicitor, Stiofan Fitzpatrick, said that his client last month in Dublin received a three-year prison term with the final 18 months suspended.
The accused received the prison term after engaging in sexually obscene video calls with someone he believed was a 14-year-old girl.
Judge Gabbett said that the sentences he was imposing were to be consecutive to the 18-month prison term.
Mr Fitzpatrick told Judge Gabbett “for someone who has never come before the courts, my client is serving a significant sentence that has had a profound effect”.
After reading victim impact statements in the case, Judge Gabbett said that the women who received the lewd images “were traumatised”, adding that the accused had “transmitted explicit images to innocent victims”.
Judge Gabbett said that the images the man sent on were unwarranted and unsolicited, noting that one woman an image had arrived into her sitting room and destroyed her evening.
One of the injured parties who witnessed the man masturbating on the 6.15am Galway to Limerick service on February 20, 2023, video recorded the incident and handed over the recording to Gardaí as evidence.
Judge Gabbett remarked that one of the women to receive a lewd image “is a public figure”.
The judge said a probation report handed into court confirmed that vigilantes “have come upon the man”, and previously ruled due to “the vigilante behaviour” and out of concern for the personal safety of the accused that reporting restrictions in the case would remain in place.
Judge Gabbett told the court previously that “the biggest concern I have here is the issue of the pattern of harmful exhibitionist behaviour”, noting that the accused by his own admission “has this compulsion”.
A probation officer told Judge Gabbett that her report recommended a therapeutic programme dealing with individuals who have sexual harmful behaviours.
Mr Fitzpatrick told the court that his client “has lost a lot”, adding that the man lives in a rural area and is isolated. He said that the man no longer has a smartphone and that he has insight into his condition.
Mr Fitzpatrick said that his client sourced the phone numbers of the three women he sent images to from Instagram.
In relation to the first offence, the court heard the man randomly selected a County Kerry woman’s phone number before sending her a lewd image of himself in October 2020.
The man has also pleaded guilty of intentionally engaging in offensive conduct of a sexual nature by sending an image of his erect penis to two women – living in Limerick and Dublin – in May 2021.
The charges are contrary to the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, where a maximum sentence of six months in the District Court applies.
