Sentence increased for former garda sergeant who solicited child sex

The State has succeeded in increasing the sentence handed down to a former garda sergeant who incited a prostitute to find him children to have sex with.

The State has succeeded in increasing the sentence handed down to a former garda sergeant who incited a prostitute to find him children to have sex with.

Kieran O'Halloran (aged 50), who had been a member of the gardai for 22 years and who held a command post in Croatia while working for the United Nations, offered two prostitutes up to €10,000 to source the children and asked one to organise "three or four children in a hotel room" for him to rape.

O’Halloran, formerly of Whitethorn Walk, Westminister Park, Foxrock, also showed a child pornography DVD to one prostitute and asked her to get him a picture of a new-born baby with their genitals on view.

He received a six-year sentence with 15 months suspended at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in March last year, having pleaded guilty to inciting the women "to organise or knowingly facilitate the use of a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation" in October 2005 and April 2006.

A 20-year post-release supervision order was also imposed on O'Halloran in 2003 when he was jailed for three years for an almost identical offence.

The Court of Criminal Appeal today replaced O’Halloran’s sentence with a six-year jail term after having found that Judge Katherine Delahunt had erred in principle when imposing the original sentence.

Mr Fergal Foley BL, for the State, had argued that the sentence imposed on O’Halloran was unduly lenient because he had committed “depraved crimes” while supposedly receiving treatment for his deviant sexual behaviour.

Mr Foley said that it would be an “injustice to the public” not to consider a sentence of “full value” and that Judge Delahunt should have exercised her discretion to have the sentences imposed on O’Halloran run consecutively.

He said that it was clear that rehabilitation in O’Halloran’s case had not worked and that there was a societal obligation to protect the “tiny children” with which he was fixated from sexual abuse.

Presiding judge Mr Justice Liam McKechnie, sitting with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Mr Justice Brian McGovern, said that O’Halloran’s offences indicated a depraved mind.

He said the court felt it had to support efforts to enforce the protection of “vulnerable children” who were the subject of O’Halloran’s offending.

Mr Justice McKechnie said the court had noted that O’Halloran had maintained his pattern of offending over a period of seven years and that a Granada Institute report from February 2009 deemed him as being of at a high risk of reoffending, despite undergoing continuous treatment.

He said that, in light of these facts, the appeal court had found that the trial judge had made an error in her structuring of the original sentence.

However, Mr JusticeMcKechnie rejected the contention that Judge Delahunt should have imposed consecutive sentences on O’Halloran for the five counts on the indictment.

In handing down the revised six-year sentence, Mr Justice McKechnie said that court was strongly of the view that O’Halloran should receive the most appropriate treatment while in custody, and that it would be “perilous” for his continued involvement with the Granada Institute to be severed.

Mr Justice Kechnie ordered that O’Halloran also remain subject to the provisions of the existing post-release supervision scheme until the year 2023.

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