Man tried to record image of girl (11) in Offaly leisure centre

Tullamore Circuit Court judge jails 37-year-old who also had hundreds of child pornographic images on laptops when gardai searched Athlone home

Published 23rd Jun 2026, 16:30 BST Gardai traced offender after leisure centre staff member photographed his car before he sped away | Tribune Pictures Tullamore Circuit Court judge jails 37-year-old who also had hundreds of child pornographic images on laptops when gardai searched Athlone home Sign up to our Offaly Live newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know you can manage your profile, and explore all of the available newsletters from Offaly Live within your account.

A JUDGE has called for a review of the penalties for people convicted of attempting to record intimate images without permission.

Judge Keenan Johnson was commenting when he sentenced a 37-year-old man who possessed child pornography and tried to record an 11-year-old girl at Aura Leisure Centre, Tullamore.

Judge Johnson noted that while the maximum penalty for child pornography is five years, the penalty for the other offence is 12 months.

“In the court's view this is totally inadequate given the gravity and nature of this type of offending. The court is of the view that the maximum penalty should be increased to at least five years and this is something that the Oireachtas might review,” he said.

He imposed two concurrent two-year sentences, including one year suspended, for child pornography possession offences, plus another concurrent sentence of nine months.

In his judgment at Tullamore Circuit Court, he outlined how Adam Dalton, with an address at Twyford, Baylin, Athlone, but who subsequently moved to Co Mayo, had pleaded guilty to attempting to record an intimate image of the girl on July 15, 2023.

Mr Dalton was in a changing cubicle in the leisure centre and pushed a phone camera in a shampoo bottle under the wall adjoining the cubicle being used by the girl.

The girl told gardai she heard a person putting his bag down and then taking out a towel and the bottle.

He pushed the towel and bottle in towards the victim's cubicle and she noticed how the towel and bottle kept moving and being adjusted.

She put her bag on top of the bottle and when it moved again a couple of times she noticed a mobile phone and what looked like a camera lens inside the bottle. A hole had been made in the bottle.

Judge Keenan Johnson called for review of penalty available to him when he addressed Tullamore Circuit Court | Tribune Pictures She called her father into the cubicle and he went and waited for the man to come out. Mr Dalton denied any wrongdoing when he was challenged and produced a different shampoo bottle from the one used to hide the phone.

There was an argument and a staff member, who had heard shouting and asked the men to take the matter outside, said he would ring the gardai when told of the allegation.

The accused said he was leaving and the staff member took a picture of Mr Dalton's car before he sped off.

The gardai traced the car to the accused's address where they found Acer and Samsung laptops containing over 600 of what the judge said were “child sexual images”, “child exposure images” and “child anime images”.

Analysis of the Acer showed child pornographic images had been accessed 446 times between March 8, 2022 and July 17, 2023 while the Samsung had been accessed 43 times up to August 10, 2018.

When he was arrested and interviewed on September 9, 2024, Mr Dalton said he had been living in Athlone with his stepmother and then moved to Mayo in May 2024. While he made full admissions, but the judge said the accused also stated he “could have made a video” of the girl but had deleted it.

He also said the child pornographic images had “popped up” when he was looking at nudist sites. There was no evidence he had produced or distributed any of the images.

Judge Johnson said the man's possession of so much child pornography and his efforts to surreptitiously record the girl while she was changing in the leisure centre combined to render his culpability and offending “as extremely serious”.

“This was a gross breach of trust and invasion of the victim's privacy. A child should feel safe when at the local leisure centre which is a gathering place for children and families.”

He said the activities of the man were reprehensible and disgusting and a victim impact statement indicated the girl's sense of security and safety had been severely undermined.

“Leisure centres should be places of safety and not places where children are at risk of exploitation.”

The victim reported that she no longer trusted people, was always conscious around swimming pools and afraid someone will watch her get undressed or even record her.

Judge Johnson said her father stated that she saw her body as an object that attracted unwanted attention.

The judge said the volume of extreme images possessed indicated a serious addiction to child pornography and the attempt to record the girl was “very disturbing”.

He did not accept Mr Dalton came upon the images accidentally while viewing nudist sites and noted the man told a forensic psychologist that he had no sexual attraction to children but “rather to petite body sizes”.

The man said he only looked at the images for two months but that was at variance with analysis of the laptops.

“People like the accused who download child pornographic images are enabling and supporting this disgusting and repulsive industry and that is a further aggravating factor.”

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A probation report indicated Mr Dalton had sourced a sex offenders programme himself and was engaging well. He had a difficult start in life having spent his first year and a half “in terrible conditions” in a Romanian orphanage where he contracted Hepatitis B, a condition which might require a transplant.

He was adopted but both his adoptive parents subsequently died. He struggled with his mental health, attempted suicide at 17 and still has depression.

A man who had lost his “good job with the civil service”, he was assessed at a moderate risk of reoffending but had to address his sex drive and preoccupation with sex, his deviant sexual interests, negative emotionality, poor problem solving and use of sexual behaviour as a coping mechanism.

He was in a stable relationship for two years and his partner described him as kind and caring.

One year of the two-year sentence was suspended on entry of a five-year peace bond, the completion of sex offenders therapy, plus the payment of €1,000 to the victim's father for the girl's benefit.

Judge Johnson wished the victim well and hoped she can move on with her life. He said she deserved tremendous praise for how she dealt with the offending.

“She had extraordinary presence of mind to report the matter immediately to her dad and to appreciate the gravity and seriousness of what was happening.”