A 51-year-old Jadesola Agbalade forwarded a child pornography clip which showed a child being raped, a Dublin court has heard.
She pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly distributing child pornography on July 20, 2016. Garda Enda Ledwith told Karl Finnegan BL, prosecuting, that he arrested a man in Dublin Airport in July 2017 in relation to credit card fraud.
That man’s phone was investigated and the child pornography clip was discovered. The court heard the clip showed a child between the ages of two and five being raped by a man.
Upon further investigation, gardaí discovered it is an international clip that has been in circulation since about 2014. Gardaí traced the phone number from which the clip was sent back to Agbalade.
When they called the number, Agbalade answered and agreed to meet them at Blanchardstown shopping centre. She handed over her phone to gardaí and admitted to receiving the child pornography clip and sending it on.
As well as the male recipient identified by gardaí, she told gardaí she sent the clip to a female friend who has three young children in a bid to warn her “not to leave her children with her boyfriend”.
That lady has never been identified. Agbalade has no previous convictions. Gda Ledwith agreed with Michael Bowman SC, defending, that Agbalade “didn’t understand the enormity of the situation” when she was interviewed.
She told gardaí, “I didn’t know it wasn’t right. I’m sorry.” Mr Bowman told the court it was a “remarkably unusual” case. Mr Bowman said Agbalade has one teenage child still living with her and two adult sons who are in university.
He said she is a single mother who came to Ireland in 2001. He submitted the stigma of a conviction would be punishment enough for Agbalade. “She will now be a sex offender and as a mother, that is a significant stigma in the community,” he said.
Agbalade “comes to the court absolutely aghast at what she has allowed herself to become involved in,” he added. Judge Karen O’Connor ordered a probation report and remanded Agbalade on continuing bail.
