A FORMER Limerick secondary school music teacher has been jailed after he admitted possessing depraved videos and images of adults engaging in sexual activities with children as young as three.
Sam Kavanagh (30), with an address at Kilkerric, Derrymore East, Tralee, County Kerry, was arrested by Gardaí after they were alerted to his offending by authorities in the US.
One of the 162 videos and images found on a laptop and hard drive owned by Mr Kavanagh involved a three-year-old girl who was recorded on video with her private areas exposed, Limerick Circuit Criminal Court heard.
Mr Kavanagh was identified after he used his own personal email address to manage a Dropbox online storage folder to upload and store the illegal sex material.
The Kerry paedophile pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing the explicit material on dates between September and December 2021.
Gardaí unearthed 137 videos and 25 images, most of which were classified as Category One child sex abuse material, the most extreme form, a detective Garda told the court.
Prosecuting barrister John O’Sullivan said Gardaí established that Kavanagh was a secondary school music teacher who was living in the Patrickswell area of County Limerick.
Gardaí later on obtained a search warrant for an address at Shannon Banks, Corbally, County Clare, and raided the property on December 17, 2021, recovering a laptop and a computer hard drive containing the explicit material.
Kavanagh immediately confessed the devices were his, and admitted owning, saving, servicing, and storing the child abuse material, which he said he had downloaded from a New Zealand-based cloud storage website called Mega.
Mr O’Sullivan said one of the images found on Kavanagh’s devices was of an adult male engaging in “explicit sexual activity” with “a young female aged five”.
Some of the material showed underage teenagers involved in sexual activity with younger children.
Mr O’Sullivan said the videos and images were flagged in the United States and brought to the notice of the Garda Online Child Exploitation Unit, who in turn alerted Gardaí attached to the Limerick Divisional Protective Services Unit at Henry Street Garda Station, by way of a “mutual assistance” arrangement between Ireland and the US.
Mr Kavanagh was arrested on December 14, 2022, and appeared before the Circuit Court for trial on a signed guilty plea on October 31 this year.
Mr O’Sullivan said Kavanagh grew up in County Kerry, obtained a Masters in Music, had lectured in music, and “plays music as a hobby and is involved in a band, and he taught music to children in Limerick”.
“His parents split up when he was young, he suffered from anxiety, and he began watching pornography, and he started watching child pornography,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
The court heard that Kavanagh, who was last known to be working in a warehouse, was hospitalised following an attempted suicide after Gardaí seized his electronic devices.
“He didn’t originally see it as child abuse, he engaged with Sex and Love Therapy counselling services and he now regrets his actions and said it is disgusting,” Mr O’Sullivan told the court.
Kavanagh’s barrister, Caroline O’Connell, instructed by solicitor Eimear Griffin, asked the court to consider imposing a suspended sentence adding that her client had engaged in counselling and “made a great effort to address his problems”.
“He is married. He has huge shame and remorse,” Ms O’Connell said.
Judge Colin Daly said Kavanagh had “sought out and used” the explicit material and that “very vulnerable and innocent children were being used and abused for the sexual gratification of Mr Kavanagh and others”.
“At the time he was a music teacher in a position of trust and influence on young children,” the judge noted.
After taking into consideration Kavanagh’s signed guilty plea; previous good character; his age and family circumstances; and any poor mental health he may have been experiencing at the time, the judge reduced a headline sentence of two and half years to 16 months on each count, to run concurrently.
The judge ordered that Kavanagh should be placed on a sex offender’s register for a period of 10 years, and that the sentences be backdated to October 31, 2024, when Kavanagh was first before the court on a signed plea.
