Man remanded in custody after 35,000 instances of child abuse imagery found at Cork house

A 49-year-old man was yesterday remanded in custody after more than 35,000 instances of child sexual abuse material were discovered at his home in Clonakilty.

Judge Sinead Behan said: “That is a very high number. I am going to remand him in custody. That is not an indication of what I am going to do. I would like to read the reports.” The case was adjourned until February 19 with the accused remanded in custody until then.

Detective Garda Brian Morris testified that officers of the Protective Services Unit of West Cork went to the home of Paul Quinlan at Tawnies Lower, Clonakilty, Co Cork, on April 29, 2021, having received notification of the downloading of child sexual abuse images by the accused.

The detective said there was full co-operation in that he admitted to gardaí as soon as they arrived that he had child sexual abuse material, and he also showed them the main computer on which pictures and videos were stored.

Over 35,000 images and 150 videos were found, of which the most serious category of material amounted to 4,896, the remainder being category 2. Category 1 relates to children witnessing or engaging in sex with adults. The second category is of exposure of anal or genital areas of children.

The detective said Quinlan was not distributing the material, but was searching for it, including dark web searches to obtain material.

Defence senior counsel Ray Boland said the defendant accepted that this was not a victimless crime. He said there was not a question of distributing images. Mr Boland also said there were duplicates of many images in reaching the total, for instance of over 35,000 images and he said the actual number of unique images was closer to 20,000.

“He had some trauma in his early life,” Mr Boland said.

“I would be inviting the court to impose an appropriate sentence suspended on condition that he take up the appropriate treatment.”