This article contains references to rape and sexual content involving minors. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
By Sonya McLean
A man who held a 15-year-old girl “hostage” by threatening to leak naked photographs of her, having met the child through an online game, has been jailed for two and half years.
The now 24-year-old man, initially met the girl in 2022 through the game Roblox. He cannot be named to protect the identity of the now 18-year-old victim.
They later began to communicate over various other social media platforms during which they discussed self-harm and he convinced her to send him sexualised images and videos of herself.
He then began to harass the teenager by threatening to leak these images to her family and friends if she did not do as he asked.
He insisted that she regularly ring him, share photographs of what she was doing, ask for permission to go on walks or attend concerts and also asked her to prop her phone up by her bed so he could watch her sleeping.
The girl stated in her victim impact statement that she “no longer felt like a person, more an object that he controlled”.
She said now that she is physically free, the memories of that time in her life “will probably loom over me forever”.
“I often wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self that she will eventually be free,” the teenager wrote before concluding her statement with describing herself as being “held hostage by someone who never had the right to”.
The man pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to harassment and possession of four images of child sexual abuse, which are termed child pornography in law, between December 2023 and November 2024.
These images were found on his phone after his arrest by gardaí in 2024. They are not images of the victim.
A psychologist report outlined the man’s medical history. His mental health began to deteriorate as a teenager and was particularly acute by the time he was 19 years old. He then began abusing alcohol and to self-harm. He had many referrals to psychiatric hospitals.
He has since been diagnosed as having emotional unstable personality disorder and is taking medication for both bipolar and schizophrenia, although he has not been diagnosed with either condition, the court heard.
Judge Martin Nolan remarked that a psychologist report concludes that the man has “difficulty understanding the wrong he has done”.
Judge Nolan said the man “undoubtedly harassed” the teenager and made her life miserable by blackmailing and threatening to leak the images. He said it caused her “great distress”.
He said he had looked through the psychological report and the most striking feature is that the accused “seems to think he has done no wrong”.
“That causes great difficulty. It very hard to change your behaviour if you believe what your doing was not wrong – hopefully his time in custody will in a practical way show him that what he has done wrong,” Judge Nolan.
He accepted that man had co-operated with the garda investigation and made full admissions, that he has no previous convictions and has mental health issues.
Judge Nolan again commented that the man “had not shown great insight” into his offending behaviour before he said a headline sentence of five years was warranted.
He reduced that sentence to two and half years having taking into consideration the mitigating features in the case. The sentence was backdated to when the man went into custody last November.
Judge Nolan further ordered that he not have any contact either directly or indirectly with the victim for 25 years.
The now 18-year-old girl initially took the stand to read her victim impact statement but became upset and was unable to do so. Her father read it out on her behalf.
She said writing the statement had been very difficult as she had to relive the events but she said she believes it is important and needs to be heard.
She said prior to meeting the accused she was “outgoing and comfortable with herself” but said she was dealing with issues of self-image and struggling with her mental health.
She said the online world was “a step away from reality” and helped her deal with her feelings. She said she could not have imagined how drastically her life would change.
The teenager wrote that during that time she was being harassed by the accused she felt the only way she could escape from it was to take her own life.
“I was in such pain and felt this was the only way,” she wrote but the thing that stopped her was that he threatened to continue to torment her family and friends if she herself died.
She said she was terrified and left in such pain and she took out on that pain on herself. She said self-harm became her “go to response”.
“I now carry reminders of those times for life on my skin,” she continued.
She outlined how threats of rape issued by the man, left her with nightmares.
She said his behaviour impacted her mental health, her relationship with her family and her motivation to work in school. She described the loss of a friend who she still misses.
“It still hurts that I can no longer call her my friend,” she wrote.
She said school became nothing more than a brief escape but then the man pressured her to call him during her breaks in school.
Detective Garda Eamon Leen told Jane Murphy BL prosecuting that gardaí were first alerted to the case in November 2024 when a friend of the victim contacted her local garda station and told them she had concerns for her friend.
She said the accused had made threats against her friend on social media and he had indicated that he was going to fly into Dublin later that month to meet the girl.
Gardaí then contacted the victim and her family and she later provided a statement to a specialist garda interviewer. She said she first met the accused online through the game Roblox when she was 15 years old. She then began to communicate with him through Discord, Snapchat and WhatsApp.
The man was 21 years old at the time – he offered to buy the teenager “currencies and subscriptions” for the online platforms they were using so that she could call and text him every day. Initially they discussed self harm and the teenager made reference to harming herself.
The man told her she was “not doing right” and said she “should do it better”. He then encouraged her to send nude and sexualised photographs and videos of herself.
After some time he began to make consistent threats to share these videos and images to the girl’s family and friends if she did not fulfil many demands he made of her.
The court heard of an occasion when the teenager was on holiday with her family and the accused insisted that she ring him every day and share photographs of what she was doing. He again threatened to release these images he had of her if she did not do as instructed. He said he would post some of the images to her parent’s home.
Following this trip with her family the girl changed her number after she told her parents what was happening but the man continued to contact her friends. At one point her friends told him that the teenager had died in an effort to stop him contacting them.
Ultimately the girl accepted another request from him because she was so afraid he would leak these images.
He then told her he would travel to Dublin. He said they would get a hotel room together and have sex but when she asked him what he would do if she didn’t want to have sex with him, he threatened to rape her.
The man continued to insist that the girl communicate every day with him and told her she should seek permission to go for a walk or attend concerts with her family.
Det Gda Leen told Ms Murphy that the man threatened to kill her if she started a relationship with another boy. He spoke about their future as if they were going to get married and have children. He told her to leave her phone propped up beside her bed while she was sleep so he could watch her while she slept.
She told the accused she would kill herself but he said he would continue to harass her family and friends if she died.
The girl decided that she would be rather treated badly by the man than have her family and friends subjected to harassment.
Det Gda Leen said gardaí established that the man was travelling into Dublin Airport on November 27, 2024 and arrested him at passport control. He was detained and interviewed but released without charge.
The man told gardaí that he enjoyed watching videos of people harming animals and children and was addicted to “gore” videos.
He told gardaí he had travelled to Ireland to meet his girlfriend, referring to the victim in the case.
The following day the man was arrested for loitering outside the victim’s home. Her father had just got off a bus and was speaking to the gardaí on the phone about their investigation when he spotted the man outside his home. The man was arrested and has been remanded in custody since.
Following his arrest the man’s phone was analysed and he was found to have four images of child abuse material.
Det Gda Leen agreed with Fionnula O’Sullivan SC defending in cross-examination that the initial contact was made through the online gaming platform Roblox before it graduated to other social media platforms.
He acknowledged that the accused outlined “serious mental health difficulties” he had during his interview with gardaí.
Ms O’Sullivan said her client had never been on a plane before coming to Ireland in November last year.
She said he came on the belief that he was travelling to meet his girlfriend, although counsel acknowledged that the teenager had not spoken to the accused for two weeks at that point.