An ex-creche worker who was found with child sex abuse images claims he “downloaded them by mistake”.
Ray Corbally, 31, was given a suspended sentence for possessing 16 images of chid sex abuse, 12 of which were classed as Category A, the most serious type. He was handed an 18-month-suspended sentence in Wicklow District Court, south of Dublin, after he downloaded the images onto a Packard Bell laptop computer.
But Croball, who claims to now be in hiding for dear of his life, said he never intentionally downloaded the images and that he is not a paedophile. “You’re saying that I worked in a creche but that was way before this and it’s got nothing to do with it,” he said.
According to DublinLive he added: “That was years ago, I was only 21. It’s irrelevant. I worked in a hotel after that and I’ve been working down in the port for the last few years,” he continued. Corbally told the outlet his life had been ruined following his conviction and that he is afraid to go outside.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “People are now making up their own stories about me and everyone is believing it. Everyone just jumped on the bandwagon and said it has to be true. They’re saying I made all these fake accounts and that I’m texting children. If that’s true, why wasn’t that said in court? I’m terrified to even walk out the door. I’m isolated and I’m fearful for my life.
In his version of events, Corbally claimed he downloaded the child abuse material by mistake after clicking into a link sent to him in an on group chat. He claimed the dodgy link on social messaging app Kik, which he said he joined as he was lonely and wanted to make friends.
“I was in a group chat. My dad died five years ago and at the time I didn’t have any friends to turn to. I went into a deep depression and so I went into an app to make friends, basically,” he told us. “It started off fine. It was an open group chat and anyone could join from all over the world. It started off fine. Everything was normal and we were chatting about fishing and things related to that.
“The group was for making friends and there was another one for fishing and there was another one with just lads as well. Someone sent a link, it was a torrent type thing with loads of letters and I clicked it and downloaded it. When I saw what it was, I panicked, I messaged the person and said don’t you ever send me something like that again. Then I deleted it. It was basically straight away.
“I deleted everything that I downloaded and I deleted the app.” Corbally said he regrets not having informed gardai (Irish police) about what he saw, with officers coming to his home weeks later. “I didn’t think much of it when I deleted it. I thought that was the end of it. That was stupid enough of me. I should have reported it to the gardai but I just panicked and deleted it,” he said. “Two weeks later, they came to my door and took my electronics.”
Corbally said he cannot return to his family home in Dublin, as their address has been published following his court appearance. He now claims he has left the country and that gardai are investigating threats to his family. He was previously a deputy manager for Links Childcare in one of its northside locations in Dublin, until March 2021. He then moved to a southside location about five months before he was caught red-handed with child abuse images.
Links Creche and Montessor Ltd was previously fined €1,000 (£832) at Dublin District Court after having pleaded guilty to eight charges between February and March. Irish outlet RTE led an undercover exposé after several staff members were filmed shouting at, cursing in front of as well as pushing and roughly handling children at a Malahide creche over several days in February and March 2013.
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