Man caught with haul of child sex abuse images on hard-drive avoids jail
John Sweeney, 60, appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court where he pleaded guilty to possession of the images when his house at Dore, Bunbeg was raided by Gardai on July 24th, 2019
A Co Donegal man caught with a haul of child sex abuse and anime images on a computer hard-drive at his home has avoided going to jail.
John Sweeney, 60, appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court where he pleaded guilty to possession of the images when his house at Dore, Bunbeg was raided by Gardai on July 24th, 2019.
Detective Garda Enda Jennings and Michelle Kelly were acting on information forwarded by the Garda National Protective Services Bureau.
It followed information they received that a user had uploaded child pornography from an Eircom internet account.
The account was traced to John Sweeney whose Eircom account had been activated on April 11th, 2014.
Gardai visited the house and seized three mobile phones as well as a hard-drive.
All the images including a total of 139 child abuse images and 94 anime images were found on the computer hard-drive.
Sweeney was arrested, taken to Milford Garda Station and made full admissions.
Detective Garda Enda Jennings told the court that the accused man had cooperated and told Gardai he had been going through a difficult time and was drinking heavily at the time.
The court was further told that Sweeney lived alone at the address and had no previous convictions.
Barrister for the accused, Ms Patricia McLaughlin, SC, said her client had given all his PIN numbers to Gardai and had cooperated fully and made admissions at the scene.
However, because of a backlog in investigating such cases around the country at the time, it wasn't until November 2023 that a plea could be made.
A number of the One in Four counselling service was given to Sweeney and he went about getting counselling during that time.
Ms McLaughlin said it was not the case that her client shared any of the images and had no great sophisticated knowledge of computers but was accessing adult pornography over a period of time.
Child pornography then began to pop up and the accused man then developed some curiosity on this, Ms McLaughlin added.
John Sweeney leaving Letterkenny Circuit Court. (North West Newspix)
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Sweeney had been in a relationship for several years but this ended and he began to drink and this led to a deterioration in his mental health.
He had been diagnosed with cancer in 2015 but had recovered from this and he had a good work history up until this and had no previous convictions.
A probation report dated May 29th, 2025, said Sweeney was of a low risk of reoffending but there were some concerns for him because of his isolation and that he has limited support within the community.
The report said Sweeney had been spending hours online going down a rabbit hole of adult pornography and then further material at a time when he was leading a chaotic lifestyle, suffering from emotional distress and abusing alcohol.
However, the probation service also noted that he has expressed remorse and is aware that the images are wrong and was happy to go under the supervision of the probation services.
Community service was not recommended for Sweeney because of his medical issues but he continues to go down the path of counselling, the probation report added.
Ms McLaughlin added that Sweeney is a man of previous good character who has had the offence hanging over him for the past five years, that he lives in a small, local community and that he has taken steps towards rehabilitation.
She asked Judge John Aylmer to consider dealing with the offence by way of a non-custodial sentence considering the overall amount of images, the amount of time the accused man had the images in his possession which was estimated to be two months and how he came upon the images.
She said her client had had an "unsophisticated fall into child porn."
Judge Aylmer said that on the very early plea and the number of images involved, he placed the offence at the lower end of the scale and one which merited a sentence of two years before mitigation.
In mitigation, the Judge said Sweeney had no previous convictions, had cooperated fully with Gardai and had entered an early plea.
He also noted that five years had elapsed since his arrest and appearing in court, that the case had been hanging over Sweeney, that he had availed of rehab and that he was assessed as being of a low risk of reoffending.
For all of these factors as well as his remorse and shame, Judge Aylmer reduced the sentence to one of 18 months in prison.
He added that the question then arises that if the court might suspend all or part of that sentence and that he accepted the advance by Sweeney's barrister, Ms McLaughlin, that there were similarities to another case, the McGinty case.
Ms McLaughlin said that it was similar in many ways to the McGinty case because of the cooperation, the lack of previous convictions, the low risk of reoffending, the engagement in rehab as well as the fact that the case has hung over the accused for so long.
Judge Aylmer agreed that this was one of those unusual cases where the court can suspend the entirety of the 18 months sentence and ordered Sweeney to go under the supervision of the probation services.
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