Man had online sexual chats with undercover PSNI officer posing as 13-year-old girl

A former Office of Public Works (OPW) worker is due to be sentenced in May after he was caught having highly sexualised conversations with a PSNI officer purporting to be a 13-year-old girl on an online chat platform.

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

He is 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.

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.

Messages sent to ‘Jess’ asked “are you a hot, sexy schoolgirl in uniform”, and if she had had a guy touch her sexually yet. He then asked if she’d ever seen a guy masturbate yet, before asking her, “would you like to see?”.

He continued to send further messages of a sexual nature, requesting pictures of ‘Jess’ and her mother, as well as sexual images, before asking her if she had Skype.

When the undercover officer provided a Skype address, a call was received on the platform, which showed a male in a tractor, or similar type machinery, attempting to masturbate. After that call, Mr Smyth sent further sexualised messages on Skype, where he said his name was Joe.

He continued to send her 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’, with 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 made full admissions.

When various matters were put to him, he accepted the evidence and said “Yep, that’s the gist of it. I can also assure you that would never happen. It was a fantasy world.”

When asked if he thought he had an addiction to sex or porn, he said “no, but I would need counselling for my wild, sexual fantasies”.

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.

He pointed out that these exploitation offences are “attempts”, because the person the defendant was speaking to was not a minor and was, in fact, a police officer.

A psychological report revealed sexual addiction issues and so Mr Shortt asked the court to deal with sentencing in the same context as if dealing with a drug addict: “to prevent repetition or recidivism, the primary goal must be the rehabilitation of the offender”.

Judge Johnson noted that a lot of these cases stem from “the invention of the internet”, stating that, were it not for ease of online access, “a lot of these offenders wouldn’t see the inside of a courtroom”.

“The temptation wouldn’t be there. The internet is a wonderful tool for information, but it’s a cesspit as well,” he said.

He noted the complexity of the case and said he would need time to consider his judgement. Mr Smyth was remanded on continuing bail to May 6, when he will be sentenced.