Suspended sentence for man who had online sexual chats with undercover PSNI officer posing as 13-year-old girl

A former Office of Public Works (OPW) worker who was caught having highly sexualised conversations with a PSNI officer purporting to be a 13-year-old girl on an online chat platform has been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Kevin Smyth (58), with an address at Dublin Road, Castlepollard, County Westmeath, appeared before Judge Keenan Johnson at a sitting of Mullingar Circuit Court, where he had previously pleaded guilty to a number of attempted child exploitation charges on various dates in 2021.

He was charged with attempting to intentionally cause a child to look at an image of himself engaging in sexual activity for the purpose of sexual gratification or corrupting a child on July 15, 2021.

Mr Smyth is also charged with attempting to use Skype and WhatsApp to facilitate child sexual exploitation on dates between June 29 and July 8, 2021, and July 8 and July 19, 2021, respectively. A further charge relates to an attempt to invite a child to sexual touching on June 30, 2021.

Judge Johnson imposed concurrent four-year sentences on three charges, taking the other two into account, before proceeding to suspend the combined sentence for eight years.

He noted Mr Smyth had been motivated by an unhealthy preoccupation with deviant sexual acts and that the offences involved a type of “grooming”.

He rejected a statement in the probation report that the accused had minimised his behaviour because it did not occur “in real life”, and said that Mr Smyth had no idea that he was not talking to a real child. He noted, however, there was no evidence of any prior similar offences.

A psychological report furnished to the court stated that Mr Smyth was at low risk of reoffending if he continued with specialist counselling. It also stated that the accused had been abused at a young age, but his abuser had died before being brought to trial, which affecte Mr Smyth.

The eight-year suspended sentence is subject to a number of strict conditions, including that he continue to engage with the supervision of the Probation Service for 18 months, that he engage with the One-in-Four treatment programme within 24 months, and continue with his one-on-one counselling sessions with his psychologist.

He was also ordered to pay €15,000 to the Barnardos Children’s Charity within six months. Mr Smyth will also be on the Sex Offenders Register.

At a sentence hearing in April, Detective Sergeant Eric Naughton of the Divisional Protective Services Unit (DPSU) for Meath and Westmeath told Cathal O’Braonáin, BL, prosecuting, that he was made aware of a referral from the Online Child Exploitation Unit.

An intelligence pack forwarded to gardaí gave details of a man who had engaged in sexualised conversation with what he thought was a 13-year-old girl by the name of ‘Jess’, but was actually an undercover PSNI officer.

The communication initially took place on a free online chat room known as Chaw IW, where Mr Smyth had gone by the username ‘Older Guy’, and immediately engaged in sexualised conversation, which continued after the undercover officer disclosed an age of 13 years.

He sent her a number of pictures of himself, as well as requests for sexualised images, saying he would masturbate for her and then instruct her on how to masturbate.

Later, he provided ‘Jess’ with a mobile phone number and instructed her not to call him, and to save his number as a girl’s name in her contacts. Conversation then moved to WhatsApp, where Mr Smyth’s profile picture was a tractor.

He engaged in further sexualised conversation with ‘Jess’, and made further requests for masturbation and sexual images. He sent a photograph of himself on the couch, naked. In further messages, he indicated that he worked for the Irish government and said he would like to meet up with her.

When Mr Smyth was identified and a search carried out in his home, a number of devices were seized but, following analysis, no Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM) was found. Some sexualised Skype chats were recovered, as well as images that matched those sent to ‘Jess’.

When interviewed, Mr Smyth initially gave an account of engaging in sexualised conversations with adult women through social media and denied chatting with the PSNI officer purporting to be a child.

After taking a break to converse with his solicitor, he proceeded to make full admissions.

John Shortt, SC, in mitigation, said that the offences have had “a profound effect on his life”, as he has lost his marriage, his family and his job.