You were meant to protect him’: man who abused nephew he was babysitting while on live Omegle chat jailed

A man (40s) who filmed himself touching his sleeping nephew while talking to a stranger live on a random video chat website has been jailed for 10 years.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identities of his victims, also encouraged a boy on the same video chat website to masturbate, while turning the camera to show himself masturbating. He is also charged with taking covert videos of a young girl using the toilet on his premises.

The accused previously appeared before a sitting of Mullingar Circuit Court where Judge Keenan Johnson said his crimes were “very serious offences involving the exploitation of vulnerable children”.

In a powerful victim impact statement, the sister of the accused spoke directly to him from the stand, telling him that what he had done to her son “destroyed” her.

“You were meant to protect him. I trusted you. He loved you so much and you took advantage of him,” she said, breaking down in tears.

“He was so hurt. You devastated him. He’s mourning his uncle because the person you were to him died the moment you put your hands on him.”

In a specialist interview with gardaí, the man’s nephew disclosed that he had been asleep on the couch when he woke up to his uncle rubbing his penis with the palm of his hand over his clothes.

He said that the screen light from his uncle’s phone was shining in his face and that was what woke him. On the screen was the randomised chat website, Omegle, and the accused was connected to another male via video chat.

His uncle was showing himself touching the boy while on a video chat with the “random” adult male, who was masturbating, the court heard.

“I felt like puking. I felt really scared,” the boy said.

In interview, the man admitted to babysitting his nephew, but denied the offence. He claimed to be unaware of the chat site, Omegle, and suggested his sister had coached the boy to say this.

Gardaí examining the phone discovered two “covert” recordings of an 11-year-old female using the toilet at the accused’s premises. The videos showed her vaginal area from when she got on and off the toilet, the court heard. The phone was directly in front of her and the accused’s voice could be heard in the background.

The girl’s mother was made aware of the recordings and indicated she knew the accused for three years. She was shocked and said that she’d had concerns because the man had been texting her son late at night, often inviting him over.

In a victim impact statement, she said the incident had left a “deep emotional wound” and that her daughter “questions her safety even in familiar spaces”.

“This experience has stolen a piece of her innocence. No child should be burdened with the knowledge that someone has exploited their vulnerabilities,” she said.

An application was made to have a number of exhibits seized from the man’s property, including a desktop PC, which was found to have another video of a child.

That video was a screen recording of an interaction carried out on Omegle between an adult male and a young boy. The male adult, who only showed a portion of the room in the video, and not his face, asked the boy his age, to which he replied 11.

The male asked the child to show his genitals and the boy responded “I’m a boy”, to which the adult male replied “okay, even better”.

He encouraged the boy to masturbate, then pointed his camera down to show himself masturbating. The boy proceeded to do the same, but stopped a short time later.

The male’s face was not shown but gardaí compared the background of the room to the accused’s premises and found it to be identical. The video also showed a visible user logo, which is the same logo the accused used on Google Chrome.

Also on the computer were a number of anti-forensic tools used to anonymise web traffic, VPN software to anonymise online connection and eraser software that provides secure and irreversible deletion of internet history.

The man has 26 previous convictions, including criminal damage and public order, with the majority for road traffic offences.

Judge Johnson noted the seriousness of the offences, stating that “anyone who engages in this type of behaviour is going to get a significant custodial sentence”.

He sentenced the man to five years for the sexual assault of his nephew, with consecutive sentences of five years and one year for the production of the other videos, before suspending the final 12 months.

He commended the two mothers for the way they handled the situation and told the accused’s sister that she “can take pride in being a good mother” and that “enormous credit” was due to her for her strength.

“I can appreciate how isolated you felt. He’s fortunate to have as good of a mother as you,” he said.