The father of a girl who was sexually exploited by Dublin man Matthew Horan has said more needs to be done with social media to protect children online.
In a statement read out this afternoon on RTÉ's Liveline, the father said he checked what his daughter was doing online regularly and that the "enormity of what has happened to his daughter has only just hit home".
The father of one of Mathew Horan's victims sent a statement to #Liveline Here it is in full: pic.twitter.com/TgLUSeVWa7
— Liveline (@Liveline_RTE) January 29, 2018
Last week Horan, who sexually exploited girls as young as nine through social media, was jailed for nine-and-a-half years, with the final two years suspended.
Horan, from St John's Crescent in Clondalkin, used Snapchat, Instagram, musical.ly and Kik to ask young girls to send him sexually explicit videos and pictures.
The 26-year-old gathered thousands of images of the girls after obtaining them through various apps.
He was convicted on charges of child exploitation involving 15 children online and the distribution of child abuse images, among other offences.
In the statement, the unnamed man said: "I've read many times about these things happening to children and now it's happened to our child.
"The anger I felt towards what I thought was a 13-year-old boy turned to guilt that I didn't do enough to protect her from a grown man even though I checked what she was doing online regularly."
The man also urged people who are targeting the home of Horan's father to stop, saying "they are not doing any good - certainly not in our name, as this man has not been found guilty of any crime, and must be going through enough turmoil in his brain, as I am today".
He went on to thank gardaí who have helped his family over the last two years and said he respected their dedication to the case.
"Finally I would like to say how proud we are of our daughter who spoke intimately with specialist guards in the hope that this would help stop him doing it to anybody else which for the next few years at least it will.
"Sadly, there are other Matthew Horans out there and more needs to be done with social media to stop them," the father concluded.
