Laois gardaí charge young man with sexual assault of child and having child porn

Portlaoise Gardaí have charged a young man of sexually assaulting a child, exploiting a child and possessing child pornography.

The man, whois aged 23, appeared at Tullamore District Court on Wednesday, February 15, having been arrested the previous day.

Garda Detective Sergeant Liam Lonergan from Portlaoise station gave evidence of arresting, charging and cautioning the accused.

Detective Sergeant Lonergan told Judge Andrew Cody the man has been charged with one count of sexually assaulting a male, one count of child exploitation and three counts of possessing child pornography.

He said the man made no reply after caution. Applying for the accused to be remanded in custody, he said the charges followed a search of the accused's home in August 2021 when three devices were seized.

The detective opposed bail because of the serious nature of the charges, and because of allegations made by a 10-year-old child, the alleged victim, who told gardai he had been sexually assaulted in 2018.

A remand in custody was also being sought because the gardai said they had evidence that fake social media accounts had been created since August 2021 by the accused to catfish adult males.

In evidence, the accused man, who was represented by Barry Fitzgerald, solicitor, said he was attending counselling every two weeks and he had handed over passwords to his social media accounts.

Mr Fitzgerald said he did not believe the State had achieved the threshold for a remand in custody, saying his client had taken positive steps and his phone could be monitored.

Granting bail, Judge Cody did so on condition that the man move home to reside with his parents and no one residing at that address was permitted to have a mobile phone or any device capable of accessing the internet.

The only mobile phones permitted are those which can be used for voice calls and texting, added Judge Cody.

The judge also imposed a curfew between 10.30pm and 8am on the accused, ordered him to sign on three times a week at a garda station, surrender his passport, have no contact with the alleged victim or his family and continue attending for counselling.

The accused man, who cannot be identified by order of the court, is also prohibited from having any unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18.

He was remanded on bail to appear in court again on April 5 for directions from the DPP.