‘Don’t tell anybody what happened here’

Jailed for nine years for abusing boys

* * Readers may find elements of this report upsetting to read * *

A 56-year-old man who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting and exploiting four children after “grooming” them and plying them with whiskey has been sentenced to nine years in jail at Cavan Circuit Court.

Harold Galligan appeared charged with using a child for sexual exploitation; sexual assault of a child; two counts of sexual activity in the presence of a child; and with causing a child to watch sexual activity on dates between December 2021 and March 2022 at an address in County Cavan. He was also charged with possession of child abuse material.

Counsel for the State, Monica Lawlor, said four children were abused at Galligan’s home, including two siblings. One child was 12 years old, two were aged 14, and another was 15 years of age.

Sergeant Dermot Lavin outlined how, in early March 2022, he received a call about youths in school uniforms going in and out of a house, and that Garda Kenneth Dolan investigated further.

“He knocked on the door for approximately 10 minutes and then the defendant opened an upstairs window and shouted down ‘what’s wrong?’,” the court heard in evidence.

Presiding Judge John Aylmer was told that Garda Dolan eventually gained access to the property, where he discovered four children located to the rear of the on-street property.

Galligan was subsequently arrested, but no allegations were made against him that day.

Gda Dolan, however, returned to the property with a search warrant. There he found a school jersey belonging to one of the children hidden in a press, and a black Toshiba laptop on which child abuse material - 19 images and one video - were discovered.

Tobacco was also found at the property during the search although the defendant didn’t smoke.

The first child interviewed, the court heard, was a teenager that Galligan appeared particularly “infatuated with”.

The two siblings were then interviewed, while the fourth teenager was interviewed at a later date.

“A video on one of the phones [children’s] showed child porn being played on the defendant’s laptop,” explained Sgt Lavin.

Galligan made no comment when arrested.

One of the children told gardaí that all four were in a park at a playground when Galligan appeared and asked if they wanted to come to his house for a cup of tea.

Galligan, it was said, spent “a lot of time there” in that park. When the kids went back to his house, Galligan plied them with “tobacco for rollies and whiskey” and he asked the children if they wanted to watch porn.

“He seemed to have had an infatuation with one of the boys in particular,” added Sergeant Lavin.

The court was told the defendant asked the male children if he could perform oral sex on them and, when they said no, one described Galligan as getting “angry and pissed off”.

One of the boys recalled how he drank 10 or 12 whiskeys on one occasion and was “so drunk” he stumbled onto the defendant’s bed. “He asked us if we wanted to have sex and have a threesome,” said the child, who added Galligan then performed oral sex on two of the boys.

Galligan closed the door of the bedroom and told the children they weren’t getting out, telling them he was “really horny” and they wouldn’t be getting out until “‘I cum’”. This made the children feed “really scared”.

Galligan told one of the boys to take his trousers off and began performing oral sex on him. He asked another boy to take his trousers off and when that boy said no the defendant became “angry”.

The child told gardaí: “I didn’t do anything, I was scared to do anything so I just took off my trousers and myself and the other boy just looked at each other like, what the hell is happening?”

The boy detailed how the abuse continued. “I said no, no and I sat up and put my trousers on. I was wobbling,” said the boy, who said that Galligan was performing oral sex on the other boy.

“I was pushing him [the defendant], he wasn’t listening to me. He grabbed me and threw me on the bed. In the end I was like let’s get this over with because I want to go.”

The court heard Galligan began masturbating and ejaculated onto the ground. He also produced a sex toy.

Galligan asked the children what age they were and they told him.

The second boy - whose statement was also read into evidence - corroborated his friend’s account.

He said when the children went to Galligan’s house there weren’t enough chairs for everyone to sit on, so the defendant would invite them upstairs to his bedroom.

This boy told gardaí how Galligan would watch gay porn on a laptop and touch himself in their presence.

He recalled feeling “drunk with whiskey” and the defendant “pulled down my jocks and put my penis inside his mouth”.

The child felt the whole ordeal lasted 40 minutes at least. He also said, when Gda Dolan knocked on the defendant’s front door, that Galligan turned to the children and said: “It’s a fucking garda; you say nothing.”

Galligan then shuttled them to the back of his house and warned them: “Don’t tell anybody what happened here.”

On one occasion this child returned to the defendant’s house to retrieve a jacket he’d left behind. He found it in a closet and, when he put it on, discovered €10 in one of the pockets. The child said the €10 had not been there before.

A third boy said when he entered the house he could see two men having sex on the defendant’s computer, and that Galligan asked if the boys were “hard” and gay?

They replied no, but the defendant proceeded to “rub the ass” of one of the boys. “We couldn’t do anything,” the child told gardaí. “The porn was played multiple times and one of the boys asked him to stop. I remember one of the boys was lying on the bed with his clothes in the middle of his thighs. We were staring at each other because we didn’t know what to do.”

Galligan told one boy that “he loved him and would always listen to him”.

Sgt Lavin confirmed that, of the four children, just two were “touched” by the defendant. The fourth child, a female, went to the house with her boyfriend - the third boy.

The court heard Galligan appeared uncomfortable around her. She said she saw the defendant slap the bum of two of the boys.

She said she attended Galligan’s house on three occasions in total, and was there when the defendant played porn on his laptop and told all the children that, if they touched his computer, he would kill them. That frightened one of the children in particular, the court was told.

“When the porn was over, he took down his trousers and showed us his penis,” the girl added.

Galligan told the children, “I’m soft right now” and “then he started to touch it”.

It was the girl who took the phone video of what the children were being forced to watch on Galligan’s laptop and she then showed it to her mother.

Some time after the incident, she girl said that when Galligan spotted her he “clenched his teeth” and stuck up his middle finger up at her.

Sgt Lavin said assumed that the tobacco found at Galligan’s house was “for the boys”.

“They had indicated that, when they ran out of tobacco, they would go to this man’s house for some.”

In their victim impact statements, one of the boys described how the defendant’s behaviour had “affected my mental state”.

“He made me ashamed of myself and he made me question my sexuality. Every morning when I wake up I think of him and I have mental problems now. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.”

That boy’s mother also provided a statement. She described how her son had been “violated”.

She said her son was a “happy child” before the incident, full of energy and loved sport.

“He is no longer the same child. He no longer tries to make us all laugh, he rarely goes outside and when he does he has to be with someone. His schooling has gone down and he stays indoors most of the time. He has recurring nightmares and currently I am trying to get him into CAMH services. We as a family are trying to support him as he tries to recover.”

The mother of the two siblings said her boys had been very happy children before the abuse. They loved going to school, playing football and going to teenage discos. “There is now sadness in my children’s eyes. I have tried to get them into therapy but they don’t seem to want to talk about what happened to them. Now, I am so afraid of something happening to them again.”

Of over 16,000 videos found on Galligan’s laptop, around 20 were considered child abuse material.

There were numerous other photos found of the defendant “showing his erect penis”.

There was evidence found on Galligan’s laptop indicating he had tried to search for one of the children through his school. There were other searches for sites called ‘You’re Only 14’ and ‘Nice Young Cock’.

The court was told the defendant had two previous convictions - including one for sexually assaulting a male under 10 years old for which he received a two-year suspended sentence.

Galligan was described as “a bit of a loner” to the court by Sgt Lavin.

In mitigation, counsel for the defendant, Garnet Orange SC, instructed by Garrett Fortune Solicitors, described the case as “very difficult”.

He emphasised, however, his client’s guilty plea - which was of “value to the prosecution”.

“The circumstances are not good when viewing this from my client’s perspective,” Mr Orange continued.

“There was no violence towards the children,” assured the barrister, who noted that it had been “difficult” to take instructions from Galligan as the defendant was “trying to get his head around what it is he has been charged with”.

In sentencing Galligan Judge Aylmer considered multiple “aggravating” factors, from the age of the children to the fact that the defendant had “preyed” on them at a playground, luring them back to his house with the promise of tobacco and alcohol.

A “significant element” was that the “grooming” lasted over three months before it was detected.

He said it had been a “frightening” experience for the children to be “denied exit”, who masturbated himself to the point of ejaculation in front of them.

From their victim impact statements it was clear the abuse has had an “understandably appalling impact” on each of them, and that this was “likely to continue”.

He placed the offending at the upper end of scale, placing the start point for Galligan’s sentencing at 12 years. With mitigation described as “limited”, the judge imposed concurrent nine-year terms on four of the charges, six years each on two others, and three years and nine months on the last.

He also imposed a concurrent term of two years and three months for possession of child abuse material.

The terms of imprisonment will take into account time Galligan already served to date.

He first went into custody last November. All other remaining counts on the indictment were marked proven and taken into account.

A destruction order was also granted by the judge in respect of Galligan’s laptop and the sex toy found.