A 20-year-old Dublin man has been jailed for 15 months after he was caught with thousands of images and videos of child abuse on his electronic devices.
Conor Emmet from Northway Estate in Finglas came to the attention of Gardaí following an operation involving international police agencies.
Emmet’s home was raided in May 2016 following a joint operation between the Garda Cyber Crime Bureau, the FBI and Europol.
Two laptops and a mobile phone were seized.
The court heard almost 6,000 images and over 300 videos of children being sexually abused were found on his devices.
One of the videos involved an 18-month-old baby who has since been identified in Thailand and taken to safety.
Following his arrest, Emmet told gardaí he was glad he’d been caught.
He said he first started looking at child abuse images when he was 16.
Judge Karen O’Connor said she considered a non-custodial sentence, but felt she had to jail him after hearing very explicit and graphic details about the videos.
She said these crimes were not victimless, before handing down a two and a half year sentence with the final 15 months suspended.
