By Sonya McLean
A convicted rapist who was caught sending sexually explicit messages to what he believed was a 14-year-old girl has been jailed after he was caught sending similar messages to two other teenager.
Thomas Cunningham (55) of Emorville Avenue, South Circular Road, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to three charges of attempting to communicating with a child for the purposes of facilitating sexual exploitation on dates between July 2019 and August 2019.
His previous convictions include a conviction from the Central Criminal Court for 41 sexual offences on a young girl.
He was released in 2017 and an eight-year post release supervision order had been in place.
At a hearing yesterday, Judge Martin Nolan sentenced Cunningham to four years, with the final year suspended.
The judge also ordered Cunningham to be of good behaviour for five years on his release from prison and to engage with the Probation Service during this time.
Judge Nolan noted nothing had happened as Cunningham had not met any of the children, adding “who knows what might have happened” if gardai hadn’t intervened.
Detective Garda Michael Lennon told Aoife McNickle BL, prosecuting that gardaí responded to a call from a group known as Child Protection Awareness.
The group informed him that they had information regarding a suspected sex offender and explained that the man had been communicating with a fake profile the group set up purporting to be a 14-year-old girl.
A member of the group told gardaí that they set up decoy profiles for children ranging from 11 to 14 years old on social media that has a messaging function.
They explained that they don’t initiate conversations but respond when contact is made with the profile.
The group tracked down where Cunningham was living and were camped outside the property.
Cunningham was arrested and his phone taken from him.
He accepted he had been in a WhatsApp conversation but denied there was any sexual content in it.
Det Gda Lennon said the phone was physically examined and the following month the phone data was downloaded.
He told the court that Cunningham had been messaging three different numbers, including the decoy set up by the group and it was apparent in the conversations that as far as Cunningham was concerned all three were children.
The people attached to the two other numbers have never been identified.
Ms McNickle directed Judge Nolan to the Book of Evidence which contained the messages Cunningham had been sending to the decoy number set up by Child Protection Awareness.
Cunningham sent a total of 1,660 messages to this number, which he believed to be a 14-year-old girl, on dates between August 3 and August 21, 2019.
Ms McNickle said “a running theme” through the messages was the use of terms of endearment by Cunningham referring to the child as “his wife” and additionally there were references to pregnancy and the child’s age.
The second number, which gardaí were not able to identify, involved 185 messages on dates between July 12, 2019 and August 19, 2019.
Again, the conversations involved sexual content, Cunningham believed he was messaging a 14-year-old girl and he had sent a sexually explicit picture.
Cunningham sent 211 text messages to the third number over eight days in July.
He believed the child was 15-years-old and he made specific references to knowing that the child was not at the legal age of consent and referred to her as “my darling wife”.
In May 2021, Cunningham was interviewed and admitted he knew the age of each of the children he had been messaging.
He said it had been his intention to meet up with them for sexual intercourse.
He did say he became aware that the third child had an additional vulnerability and decided then not to meet up with this child.
James Dwyer SC defending said Cunningham underwent various therapies while serving time in prison for the rape offences.
He said he had been compliant with the Probation Service and was considered to be at a moderate risk of re-offending.
Counsel submitted that his client’s co-operation disclosed his offending and asked the court to note the fact that he is on the sex offenders’ register for life.
Judge Nolan noted that Cunningham has a background of a serious sexual assault conviction, for which he got a ten-year sentence.