Charlie Robinson from Barrowhouse, Laois County, Irland is a 21-year-old man found guilty of viewing, exchanging, and having close to 194 videos and 272 images of both penetrative and non-penetrative sex with underage children. He was accused on 24th of March 2018 and sentenced to two years of prison suspended over a period of five years, alongside psychological treatment and probation supervision. Furthermore, the court banned the sex offender from using the internet for five years and also ordered the culprit to pay Barnardo’s children’s charity the sum of €12,000 in four annual installments on top of the €500 peace bond.

The Irish Gardaí officers tracked the IP address of the 21-year-old and obtained a search warrant which resulted in the seizure of an iPhone and iPad. A set of forensic specialists analyzed the disturbing material and confirmed the severity of the content.

The defense argued that Charlie is not a pedophile but a sex addict. Claiming that his enjoyment did not derive from the specific intercourse between adults and children. He stated that he even avoided re-watching some of the videos sent to his dropbox because it made him unconformable. More precisely, the defense attorney argued that his client ended up consuming pedophilia because of his ever-increasing sex addiction.

“He is adamant that he does not have any interest in children and is not a pedophile,” said Judge Johnson.

On the other hand, Charlie was not only consuming pedophilia but also sharing the illegal material with other individuals. The defense argued that although the accused shared files with third-parties, it wasn’t nor sold nor bought, thus not contributing to the revenues of international pedopornography.

“Although the accused did not contribute to the revenues generated by the despicable child pornography industry. The proliferation of child pornography on the internet is a curse on modern society. People like the accused who access these sites act as enablers to those who promulgate and produce child pornography. Without people like the accused viewing child pornography, the market for it would diminish, and the motivation for producing it would be considerably reduced.” Judge Johnson declared.

The court took into account the young age of the culprit, as well as the findings of the court psychiatrists and forensics which tended to indicate that Charlie is not a danger to the public and that he didn’t act as an enabler of the child pornography industry.

SOURCE: https://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/home/356204/laois-man-had-child-pornography.html