A paedophile who tipped off Gardai about plans by other paedophiles to “share” on an 11-year-old boy was caught in possession of child porn when his house was raided.
Abuser Hugh McBride will be on the sex offenders register forever after being previously found guilty of a litany of vile attacks on children in England.
The 61-year-old returned to live in Donegal some years ago and is being monitored by Gardai here.
He appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography on his laptop computer at his rented home in Oldtown, Letterkenny.
McBride had been contacted by another sex offender whom he met in Dublin’s Arbour Hill Prison while on remand.
He had put him in touch with a third party he was seeking to find work.
However, when he contacted McBride he asked him if he wanted to “share” an 11-year-old boy whom he had identified in Cork.
McBride declined but reported the incident to Gardai.
Gardai in Letterkenny decided to raid McBride’s house and recovered a laptop computer and other items from the house.
The laptop was sent to the Garda’s Cybercrime Unit in Dublin and it was found to contain 334 child pornography images, many of which had been taken from a nudist website.
Letterkenny Courthouse
The images were of naked children who were not being sexually abused and were at the lower end of the scale of seriousness, the court was told.
When arrested and interviewed on February 10th, 2017 the accused said he had taken the pictures from ‘nudist sites’ and remarked: “that to me is not child porn.”
When asked by interviewing Gardai if he had a sexual interest in boys he replied: “Yes, it never goes away.”
The court was told that McBride lives a “pathetic” lifestyle and that he had been moved on from three houses when people found out about his past.
The barrister for the accused, Mr Shane Costello, said his client had significant previous convictions and is already subject to a lifelong monitoring on the sex offenders register.
He added “He always took responsibility for the images. It is to his credit that underneath all of this he went to the Gardai to report a far more serious crime, potentially of a boy aged 11 being shared about Cork city.
“He still chose to go to Gardai and told them they needed to do something about it.”
He also said his client was not buying the images of the children but that he was managing his own depravity by using images freely available to control his urges.
“He now appreciates that even this is a crime and not a victimless crime,” added Mr Costelloe.
Judge John Aylmer asked if McBride had any previous convictions and he was told he had a number in England going back to the 80s and 90s.
These crimes included gross indecency against young children, taking indecent photographs of young children and indecent assault for which McBride had served substantial jail sentences.
On one occasion McBride was extradited from Ireland back to England to face a further trial there and was again found guilty and jailed.
Judge Aylmer said this was a complex case and he would pass sentence on McBride on Friday.