A 29-year-old man who encouraged teenage boys to send him naked photographs of themselves to him while posing as a 17-year-old girl on Facebook has been jailed for a year-and-a-half.
Mark Keogh of Balla Road, Castlebar, Co Mayo, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 14 charges of sexual exploitation of a child on dates between November 2013 and May 2014 and possession of child abuse images at his then home in Naas, Co Kildare on 9 February 2016.
He has no previous convictions.
Keogh had set up a Facebook account under a fake name 'Nicole Doyle' in July 2013.
He then made friends with 14 boys, aged between 13 and 16 years old and sent them a total of 321 requests for naked photographs of themselves.
717 images of child abuse were found on his laptop, 399 of which related to images of 12 of the boys 'Nicole Doyle' had sent requests to.
Two of the teenagers had declined to send any photographs.
The court was told that Keogh suffers from anxiety and severe autism.
Judge Martin Nolan sentenced him to five years in prison with the last three-and-a-half suspended because of Keogh's psychological and psychiatric issues.
Keogh was an intelligent man, he said, and knew what he was doing was wrong.
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