Paedophile Tom Humphries has been released from jail.
The disgraced former journalist served 22 months in the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise for grooming and sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl.
He walked out of the jail this morning.
Humphries, 56, from Sutton in Dublin, was sentenced to two-and-half years in 2017 after he pleaded guilty to two counts of defilement of a child in Dublin between December 5 2010 and February 19, 2011 and four counts of inviting a child to take part in a sexually explicit, obscene or indecent act between January 2010 and March 2011.
The sicko exchanged at least 16,000 messages with the girl in a three-month period between December 2010 and March 2011, it was revealed in court.
He first contacted the girl in 2008 when she was 14 after getting her number through a third party and sent her pictures of his genitals twice, which caused her great distress.
He arranged to collect the girl from outside a Dublin school on a Sunday and took her to his apartment where he carried out six sexual offences over a period of a year and-a-half.
Over the course of three years, he sent her thousands of messages and continued to contact her until April 2011 when she was 17.
Humphries’ appalling crimes were uncovered by his own daughter who was collecting old phones for charity in March 2011 and found a huge amount of sexually explicit messages he had sent.
He made a partial admission after being confronted by his daughter and his brother-in-law and said he was going take his own life.
The former sports writer was estranged from his wife at the time.
The victim, who is now in her 20s, says she has been left traumatised by the abuse.
In a victim impact statement, she said: “For years it has ruined my life. I suffer permanent flashbacks and severe panic attacks. I have had to block out my childhood from the age of 14.”
She refused to accept a letter of apology from Humphries but thanked Humphries’ family for turning him in and said she would be “forever grateful” to them.
