A young Kildare man who sent naked pictures of himself to two teenage girls and harassed another two young women with messages on social media has avoided being sent to jail.
Shane Heffernan, 24, of Church View, Coill Dubh, Naas, Co Kildare was given a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for the offences which was fully suspended.
A sitting of Naas Circuit Criminal Court heard Heffernan was frustrated at not having a girlfriend and had become angry at the failure of the girls he contacted to respond to him.
Heffernan pleaded guilty to two counts of using information and communications technology to communicate with a child for the purposes of sexual exploitation contrary to Section 8 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017. The incidents occurred on dates between June 1 and June 30, 2020.
Heffernan also pleaded guilty to two charges of harassment of two other teenagers by sending them threatening texts on social media contrary to Section 10 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997.
He said the accused sent another naked photo of himself wearing just a hat and a bow tie to a slightly older girl who was aged 17 at the time. When she told Heffernan to stop sending her material, he replied: “I don’t care. I’ll do what I want.”
Garda Brannigan said he only stopped after the girl told him to “stop being a creep” or she would go to the gardaí. When asked by gardaí if the younger girl had asked to be sent photos, the court heard Heffernan replied: “Not specifically.”
Garda Brannigan said Heffernan was disgusted at what he had done and had expressed remorse. While the accused knew the girl’s age, he said he was more focused at the time “on my sexual urges.”
Cross-examined by counsel for Heffernan, Richard Wixted BL, Garda Brannigan agreed that the accused’s messages had started off “somewhat innocuously” but had escalated. The witness accepted that the accused had sent the messages “in a flirtatious way.”
Detective Garda Clare Malone gave evidence about Heffernan engaging in the harassment of two other girls aged 18 and 20 some 18 months later on various dates in January 2022.
She told counsel for the DPP, Daniel Boland BL, that Heffernan was sending “flirty” messages to the pair but the tone changed after they did not respond. Det Garda Malone said Heffernan had written a post on his Facebook page that one of the girls had been obnoxiously rude by ignoring his message and called her “a poor excuse for a woman.”
Det Garda Malone said Heffernan knew why he was being arrested when detained for questioning. She claimed he said he only wanted to scare the two girls but had no intention of physically harming them. Det Garda Malone said Heffernan felt rejected and could not understand why he could not get a girlfriend.
Judge Martin Nolan said he had read a victim impact statement from one of the girls and noted that she had told Heffernan not to communicate with her over the internet. The judge observed that the accused was wondering why he did not have a girlfriend when he was so “abusive and denigrating” in his social media posts.
He also remarked that Heffernan should have known about his inappropriate behaviour after his first contact with gardaí. Pleading for leniency, Mr Wixted said Heffernan had “a complicated mental health picture” but could not have been more forthright to gardaí about his offending.
Mr Wixted said Heffernan’s communications with his victims had started innocently but had “sky-rocketed” into something serious. The court heard that Heffernan’s mother had died last week and he was due to start on a work placement later this month.
Sentencing Heffernan to a suspended prison term of two and a half years, Judge Martin Nolan said his offences were “hurtful and distressing” for the injured parties. The judge said the accused knew what he did was wrong but he assessed that he would probably not repeat his offending in future.
Judge Nolan suspended the prison sentence on condition that Heffernan keep the peace and place himself under the supervision of the Probation Service for a year. He also ordered Heffernan to have no contact with the two females he had harassed on social media for a period of 10 years.
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