Former HSE manager shared child sexual abuse images of ‘utmost depravity’ online, Mayo court hears

A former Health Service Executive (HSE) manager in the west of Ireland facilitated images of child sexual abuse by adults on the Kik messaging service, which showed some of the victims visibly crying and screaming, a court heard on Thursday.
Peter O’Malley (47), with an address at Hawthorn Place, Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, was identified by the FBI in Philadelphia as an administrator, or the person who facilitated entry, to the Kik messaging platform.
The FBI notified An Garda Síochána, who organised a search of O’Malley’s home in Ballinrobe.
Officers seized four devices, two mobile phones and a tablet belonging to the accused and a work phone belonging to the HSE.
At an earlier court sitting, O’Malley pleaded guilty to one count of causing a child to watch sexual activity, two counts of information and technology to facilitate exploitation of a child, three counts of possession of child pornography and four counts of distribution of child pornography.
He appeared before Judge Eoin Garavan at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court on Thursday for sentencing.
The judge, however, placed O’Malley in immediate custody and remanded him until November 25th for the finalisation of the sentence.
Det Gda Paula Griffin, of the Mayo Divisional Protective Servíces Unit, told State prosecutor Patrick Reynolds that O’Malley’s personal phone held 128,791 images and approximately 70 per cent of this material was of a legal and illegal pornographic nature.
Some of the images, Det Gda Griffin explained, contained images of children from approximately three years of age to those in their teens being sexually abused.
The Garda witness continued: “Some of the images contained one adult abuser while the others involved multiple adult abusers.”
“Some of the victims were visibly crying and screaming in the images,” she said.
Det Gda Griffin said the defendant was involved in one-to-one chats, where the rule of entry was that users had to send three videos or five images of explicit material involving a child to him to gain entry to the private group.
The court heard O’Malley operated under the pseudonym ‘Pat No One’.
Gardaí discovered more than 10,000 conversations on the Kik social media app on O’Malley’s phone, from December 2019 to April 2021.
The court was told O’Malley engaged in five online conversations with children under the age of 18 from Ireland.
One Kik user was asked by O’Malley if he could have sexual intercourse with his 12–year-old daughter.
The defendant described to another user of the platform in graphic terms how he wanted to abuse his two-year-old daughter.
Desmond Dockery SC, defending, said that at the time of the offences, O’Malley was at a low ebb, working from home, drinking excessively and feeling isolated. He had turned to adult pornography for distraction.
Mr Dockery added that the defendant had “fallen into a pit of darkness”, but the prospect of rehabilitation was real for him.
The court heard that O’Malley had worked as an orthotist in the UK before returning home in 2010 to work in Galway.
It was revealed at Thursday’s hearing that O’Malley’s role with the HSE saw him organise vaccine clinics at McHale Park. Castlebar, and in Roscommon, at the height of the Covid emergency.
He was suspended by the HSE in May 2022 when details of his online activity came to light and he formally resigned earlier this year.