A former employee of the Irish Times has pled guilty to seven sample counts of a total of 101 various charges brought under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998, claiming that “boredom at work” led him to produce and disseminate hundreds of images of child rape and torture, reports the Irish Times themselves.
An FBI investigation led to the arrest of Frederick Hunt (74) after the bureau linked an email address involved in the trading of “child pornography” to his home in Ballinteer, Dublin.
Gardaí seized a number of mobile phones and computer devices from Hunt’s home in Ballinteer in 2012 which linked him to activities related to the production and distribution of child abuse imagery on his work computer at his former place of work in the Irish Times building on Tara Street in Dublin city.
According to the Irish Times, Detective Garda Suzanne Carlos told the court that Hunt had received and sent hundreds of images of young children being sexually abused and raped via several different email addresses and also had 18 “essay type stories” describing the kidnapping and rape of children.
Hunt told gardaí during an interview that he was bored at work and began browsing the internet, not looking for “child pornography” but incidentally came across it.
“I was curious about the internet. I never had any intention of harming children.”, reports the Irish Times.
“I’m not a paedophile not in the sense of harming children,” he told gardaí, the Irish Times reports.
According to the Irish Times, Hunt pleaded guilty to production, distribution and possession of the offending material on dates between December 2010 and January 2011 and Judge Karen O’Connor has adjourned sentencing until April 28th and ordered that a Probation Services assessment be carried out.
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