A convicted sex offender who was caught in a sting operation by a vigilante group has been jailed for seven and a half years.
Michael Macken who is 41 and of no fixed abode, was caught by the group communicating in a highly sexualised way with people he thought were nine different teenage girls aged between 11 and 14 years old.
The judge at the Circuit Criminal Court in Dublin said it was "deeply concerning" that he has previous convictions for sexual assault involving young children.
In August 2024, around 20 people from what was described as a "self appointed" vigilante group targeting potential online child exploitation arrived at the home of Michael Macken's parents in Coolock, where he was living at the time.
Garda Keith Alford told the court at an earlier hearing that the group called Child Online Protection Enforcers, based in Northern Ireland, confronted Macken with evidence that he had been trying to contact children online for sexual exploitation.
Defence counsel, Seoirse Ó Dúnlaing said Macken was "bundled" into a car and driven to the local garda station where there was "uproar" and two people from the group were later charged with public order offences. The court heard Macken was taken into custody for his own protection.
He admitted he had been using Facebook to contact children he believed were 14 and younger. He said he did it because he was bored.
The messages were extremely sexually explicit. He sent the "children" sexually explicit material and invited them to carry out sexual acts and send him videos and photographs.
Macken pleaded guilty to a number of sample counts including communicating with a person with the intention to facilitate sexual exploitation of a child and attempting to send sexually explicit material to a child.
The court heard he was homeless and had extremely low intellectual functioning.
He was single and lived a "lonely existence" the court was told.
Sentencing Macken, Judge Orla Crowe said all the children he was communicating with were "fictitious" and the group used a decoy adult pretending to be a child.
Nevertheless, she said Macken had the intention to communicate with very young children in a sexualised, inappropriate and very wrong manner.
She said he clearly had a deep rooted and problematic interest in young children and a sexual proclivity towards young children.
Macken has two previous convictions for sexually assaulting children aged nine and 11.
Judge Crowe said these previous convictions were a very serious matter and deeply concerning and his offences had to be marked by a significant custodial sentence.
She sentenced him to eight years in prison with the last six months suspended on conditions, including that he avail of all relevant programmes in custody and produce all of his electronic devices to gardaí if called to do so.
Additional reporting CCC Nuacht
