Snapchat predator from Cork given additional sentence to reflect gravity of crimes – The Echo

A predatory sex offender who used Snapchat to “groom and manipulate” two girls when they were aged ten and 14, whom he later raped, will now serve an additional four-and-a-half years in prison after the State successfully objected to the undue leniency of his original nine-year sentence. After David O’Sullivan was arrested last March, gardaí found 1,629 files of downloaded child sexual abuse material on a mobile phone belonging to him.  This included 915 videos and images of sexual activity involving children and 714 images of sexually explicit exposure. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had sought a review of O’Sullivan’s original term of imprisonment, arguing that his offending was at “such an extreme end” of this type of case that the ultimate sentence imposed had been “incapable of reflecting the gravity” of the crimes. The Court of Appeal has upheld the State’s appeal, finding that the sentence was unduly lenient. Resentencing O’Sullivan to thirteen-and-a half-years in prison, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said this was offending of “a very grave nature” by a young man who had “groomed and manipulated these extremely young girls, instilled fear, made threats and sexually assaulted both of them”. O’Sullivan, 23, previously of Ballick Road
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