Former HSE manager guilty of 10 child pornography charges

A former HSE manager from Ballinrobe in Co Mayo has pleaded guilty to ten charges related to the possession and distribution of child pornography on the online platform Kik at Castlebar Circuit Court.

Peter O'Malley pleaded guilty to one count of causing a child to watch sexual activity, two counts of information and technology to facilitate exploitation of a child, three counts of possession of child pornography and four counts of distribution of child pornography.

O’Malley, 47, of the Neale, Ballinrobe was remanded in custody until 25 November for sentencing.

Detective Garda Paula Griffin listed 36 charges in total.

Det Gda Griffin said An Garda Síochána was sent an intelligence pack from FBI in Philadelphia on the 18 May 2021 regarding O’Malley’s activity on a social media app called Kik.

The FBI Identified O’Malley as being an administrator on Kik.

He was involved in one-to-one chats where the rule of entry was that users had to send three videos or five images of child explicit material to O’Malley to gain entry to the private group.

On the 4 October 2021, gardaí obtained a search warrant for O’Malley’s home. They seized four electronic devices including three personal devices (two phones and a tablet) and a work phone belonging to HSE.

O'Malley operated under the pseudonym 'Pat No One'. When the FBI realised the account was connected to an IP address in Ireland, they subsequently sent an information pack to gardaí.

Gardaí found more than 10,000 conversations on the Kik social media app on O’Malley’s phone, from December 2019 until April 2021.

O’Malley was engaged in group chats where child explicit material was exchanged, and he exchanged child explicit material with other users.

He had the role of administrator in this app. He allowed other users into the group when they sent child sexual abuse material.

The court heard O’Malley knowingly engaged in five online conversations with children under the age of 18 from Cork and Kilkenny.

His personal phone contained 128,791 images of which approximately 70% was of pornographic nature, legal and illegal. The phone held 249 images of child pornographic material, including 62 images of category 1 and 44 images of a category 2 content.

The category 1 images included content of children from 3 years old to 17 years old engaged in sexually explicit activity or witnessing it, of which there were children being sexual abused by adults.

The category 2 images included content in which children’s genitals were exposed and they were in poses of a sexual nature.

The court heard some of the images O’Malley exchanged were extremely graphic and of extreme depravity including extremely serious sexual abuse.

The court heard how he invited another Kik user to the group and in the first message he asked her to trade content. All trade was initiated by O’Malley.

The court also heard how O’Malley asked one user if he could have sexual intercourse with his 12-year-old daughter.

In another instance, he described how he wanted to abuse the 2-year-old baby of a user whom he engaged in conversation.

Det Gda Paula Griffin detailed how O’Malley’s home was searched after 8pm on the 4 October 2021. He provided the passcode for his mobile phone at the search.

The court was told O'Malley grew up in the Neale outside Ballinrobe. He has no previous convictions. He qualified as an orthotist in 2002. He worked in the UK for the NHS and for a private company from 2002 until 2010 before he returned home in 2010.

He commenced employment with the HSE in 2015. He was suspended by the HSE in February 2022 when they became aware of his situation. He formally resigned from the HSE with effect on 18 June 2024. He entered a guilty plea. He was granted legal aid for this case and did not accept it.

O’Malley’s HSE laptop and phone were handed over to gardaí. No child pornographic material discovered on those HSE devices. He resigned from HSE on the 21 June 2024.

He was formally arrested on 5 January 2021. He was interviewed seven times over 24 hours. He was charged with one offence.

The court was told O’Malley lived alone in his own home. He was due to get married in May 2020, but that relationship ended around Christmas 2019.

Desmond Dockery, Senior Counsel for O’Malley, said once the relationship ended his client was in a very low place working from home, drinking excessively, isolated and turning to adult pornography for distraction and to apps such as Fob and other dating apps which led him to the Kik app, which facilitates private communications between individuals and groups.

Mr Dockery said experienced lawyers in this court know the Kik app features in cases of this nature because it lends itself to secrecy.

He said his client fell deeper and deeper into this dark place which was completely out of character for him.

Mr Dockery added that O’Malley became fixated with the Kik app and that it was stupid of him to do so.

Furthermore, he said O’Malley was shrouded in a black form of shade from which he was unable to step back.

He said lacked any capacity to stand back and look objectively at what he was doing, that his access [to the app] was all too easy, living at home and drinking.

Mr Dockery also said his client oversaw orthotic services in the Galway/Mayo region in a managerial role for the HSE and that he played an important public service role.

Mr Dockery said O’Malley was instrumental in setting up a HSE Covid-19 testing centre at McHale Park in Castlebar and the testing centre in Roscommon too.

The probation officer’s report said: "Mr O’Malley seemed determined to explore the answer why he got in over his head or in at all to this scene."

It added that O’Malley is at low risk of reoffending. She recommends him for sex offender treatment programme.

Mr Dockery said his client is a man for whom the prospect of habitation is a real one.

I do urge the court to meet its sentencing obligation but to encourage him to take further steps with his rehabilitation with the prospect that he can resume his life on a new path as he assumed it before he fell into this cesspit.

Judge Eoin Garavan said he needs time for a dispassionate overview of the evidence presented.