Married Sligo man engaged in sexualised online chat with ‘13-year-old'

Sunday World

7 days ago

Paul Nugent (48), Westway, Castletown, Drumcliffe, Co Sligo went on trial on Tuesday
A 48-year-old Sligo man has been found guilty by a jury of producing child sexual abuse images and also attempting to use information and communication technology to facilitate the sexual exploitation of a child.
Paul Nugent (48), Westway, Castletown, Drumcliffe, Co Sligo went on trial before a jury of eight men and four women before Judge Ronan Munro at Sligo Circuit Court on Tuesday, July 22.
Nugent had gone on trial on a total of twelve charges, however, during the course of the trial, Judge Munro directed the jury to return not guilty verdicts on three charges, while nolle prosequi were entered in a further three.
Paul Nugent pictured arriving at Sligo Courthouse
News in 90 Seconds - Thursday, July 31
He faced six charges as the jury began their deliberations on Friday. The charges related to dates of September 7, 8 and 10 2020.
Nugent pleaded not guilty to all charges. The trial heard that he was in communication with what he thought was a 13-year-old girl called 'Ruby' that was, however, an undercover UK police operative.
On Tuesday afternoon, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all six counts after deliberating for two and a half hours.
Ms Patricia McLaughlin SC, with Mr Leo Mulrooney BL and State Solicitor, Ms Elisa McHugh were prosecuting, while Mr Des Dockery SC, with Mr Eugene Deering BL instructed by Mullaney Solicitors appeared for Nugent.
Ms McLaughlin told the court that Nugent thought he was communicating with a child on an app when it was an undercover UK operative. She told the court Nugent is in his 40s and lives in the Sligo area.
Gardaí involved in the detection of online child exploitation unit had received communications from the UK Police in September 2020 that one of their undercover officers had been going as a pseudonym of a 13-year-old girl named 'Ruby'.
They received communications from a person and the information was given to gardaí in Dublin.
There was also a photograph in the communications.
It was suspected that Paul Nugent was involved.
Paul Nugent pictured arriving at Sligo Courthouse
Detective Sergeant Suzanne Gilmore obtained warrants to get the username during the course of the conversation and information on the email used.
The username Nugent used during the course of the communications with the undercover officer was 'currypie16'.
He was in communication with the officer between September 7 and 10 2020.
The nature of the conversation was sexually explicit.
The conversations took place on what the court heard was an app for teenagers called 'mylol'.
Gardaí contacted the Canadian company that ran the app to get information to find out if currypie16 was Paul Nugent. The first prosecution witness in the case was the undercover law enforcement officer who was posing as 'Ruby'.
She told the court she was posing as a 13-year-old girl called 'Ruby'. She was to interact online with people with a view to gathering evidence and intelligence regarding the sexual abuse or potential sexual abuse of children.
For this operation and to interact with suspects, she created email and messenger accounts. She posed as a 13-year-old girl in London.
She created social media accounts in the name of 'Ruby' and she produced several images of 'Ruby' which supported her online profile and was intended to give her more credibility during her deployments.
She also created a mylol account and had a photograph of a young 13-year-old girl on her mylol account. She described it as a dating site for teenagers.
She said the site has around 90,000 members from countries including the UK. Mylol allows members to create their personal profiles online in order to find and communicate with friends.
Users can share videos, photographs and private chat.
She said that currypie16 first contacted her on September 7 2020. This was in the form of a private message sent to the officer via mylol.
Nugent's profile page showed a white male aged 14 from London.
'Ruby' then responded to his message and told him she was 13 years old.
Currypie16 said he was 15 years, then later claimed to be 16.
The officer said that he engaged in sexual communications, during which he said he would like to have unprotected sexual intercourse with her.
All of their communications were captured on screenshot by the undercover operative. A print out was handed to the jury.
'Ruby' told the court that Nugent later told her he was an adult in his forties.
She said the conversations were sexualised from the start.
He said he was in the beginning a fifteen-year-old boy from west London. He said he liked her picture and asked if she wanted to 'flirt a bit'.
He said he wanted to kiss her and asked if they could go into a bedroom. She replied that yes, they could kiss.
He asked if she would like 'to do more than that'. He suggested he would like to take her top off and bra off and 'Ruby' replied is there for fun and he said he wanted to do it 'for real'.
He asked if she wanted to take off his jeans and boxers and 'Ruby' replied 'maybe, lol'.
He asked what she was wearing and she said her school uniform.
He asked 'Ruby' to send him a picture.
She asked him how was he really and he replied 16.
He said he liked her profile picture and wanted to take off her skirt and knickers.
He said he wanted to slip his penis into her vagina.
'Ruby' then went on to discuss the conversations on September 8 2020.
Currypie16 now claimed to be a 17-year-old builder and asked her if she would like to engage in sexual intercourse in his black BMW. Currypie16 also mentioned his female relative and said she was attractive like 'Ruby'.
He then discussed having sexual intercourse with 'Ruby' and incited her to masturbate. He said he wanted to have unprotected sex with her.
On another conversation, he went on to say that he loved her and he wished he was much older than her.
He said he wished he was in his forties to 'f**k you like a daddy'. 'Ruby' asked him his age and he said he was in his forties. He said he was 43 years old.
Currypie16 then sent her a photograph of a male who looked in his late 40s. 'Ruby' asked him if he was married and he replied he was and had no children.
She asked him why he was chatting on mylol and he said he wanted to meet a girl.
She asked him if he chatted loads of girls and he said no, just her. He discussed collecting her from school the following week and driving her to his office in East London and having sexual intercourse with her on his desk.
He said she was 'gorgeous and sexy' and the 'right age' for him.
He told her not to wear perfume if they met and when 'Ruby' asked why, he said because his wife would smell it. He suggested he could collect her from outside her school and bring to his office.
He said suggested they could have sexual intercourse on the desk.
The jury was shown a copy of the two photographs sent to 'Ruby', one which the prosecution argued was Nugent with half his face showing, sitting at his desk in his office in the company he worked for in Sligo, which they argued had a clock with the company's name visible in the background.
The jury of eight men and four women returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on Tuesday morning on all six counts after deliberating for two and a half hours.
Judge Ronan Munro initially remanded the defendant in custody over lunch following the verdict.
Mr Des Dockery SC with Mr Eugene Deering BL, instructed by Mullaney Solicitors told the Judge that Nugent accepted the jury's verdict.
Upon resumption after lunch, Mr Dockery said Nugent intended accessing professional help as soon as possible and was willing for this to be supervised by the Probation Services.
Judge Munro said he had reflected on the matter over lunch and noted the concerns of the prosecution with regard to online access by the defendant and these were valid.
In light of these concerns, he was remanding the defendant in custody pending sentence while he also directed a probation report. The Judge added that the safety of children was paramount. Nugent was remanded in custody to appear again at Sligo Circuit Court on November 25th by videolink.
During the trial on Thursday at Sligo Circuit Court, the jury heard from a number of prosecution witnesses.
Claire Brien, an employee with Yahoo international, gave evidence via videolink.
The court was told the jury heard information that was supplied on the yahoo account that was used to set up the mylol account.
It was the prosecution's case that the phone used to authenticate the email address was Nugent's.
Ms Brien was asked to explain how an email account is verified and she said it is verified by the user supplying their phone number and setting up their account to access the email account.
A verification code is sent to authenticate the email address.
The trial heard that the email account had been set up on September 4 2020.
Mr Dockery put it to the witness if the person who authenticated the phone with the code was not the owner of the phone could someone tamper and the witness said she could not confirm or deny this.
Dt Gda Derek Healy from Sligo Garda Station said he works with the Divisional Crime Scene.
He took a number of photographs on April 24 2024 at the address of Nugent's employer.
These photographs were handed to the jury.
The garda said he photographed the location along with his colleague, Detective Garda Linda Loughlin and they met with the owner.
Photographs of the view of the front of the building, the entrance door, entrance hallway, office and its layout were shown to the jury.
Dt Gda Healy explained the layout of the office and described two desks in the office and there was a clock above one of the desks.
There was also a skylight above the desk.
He took photographs of the office looking back and also the view of the office from the entrance door. He took photographs of Paul Nugent's desk with the clock and also a close up on the clock, which had the company logo on it.
Mr Dockery asked the garda if it was a shared office and he said he could not confirm this.
Mr Dockery said that April 4 2024 was almost three and a half years after the garda investigation began and said it was 'not exactly urgent'.
The garda replied that he could not say and he did not know the ins and outs of the investigation as he was not part of it. The owner of the company described the business and what they do.
He said that Nugent was working there 17 years and his working hours in 2020 were from the hours of 8am to 6pm including a lunch-break. He had a set of keys to the office and could access it later in the evening. When asked if on the 7th, 8th and 9th September if Nugent was working, he replied that he was. He worked five days a week, he confirmed, from Monday to Friday. He was asked about the clock on the wall and he confirmed it was the company clock and the desk underneath was Nugent's desk.
Ms McLaughlin asked the witness if the layout in 2020 was the same layout in terms of the desk being underneath the clock and other desks around, which the owner agreed.
Dt Gda Kieran Higgins gave evidence via video-link from the UK.
He told the trial he is a member of the Divisional Protection Unit in Sligo although he was giving his evidence from the UK.
He said Dt Sgt Suzanne Gilmore obtained warrants for Nugent's address at Castletown, Drumcliffe. Gardaí attended at 6:35pm on July 18 2021.
Nugent answered the door and handed gardaí his mobile phone, a black huawei phone.
Nugent provided his pass code and his wife was present.
There was also a Samsung Galaxy phone. Nugent was cautioned.
A property in Beechpar, Carney, a rented property belonging to the couple was also searched and an ipad was also seized. The password was provided.
The trial heard that all the items seized, which included a camera, were given to Dt Gda Oliver McHale.
Dt Gda McHale is a trained phone examiner.
Mr Dockery put it to the witness that the forensic examination of the devices found nothing criminal.
Dt Sgt Kieran Naughton of the Domestic Protection Services Unit said that on July 7 he went to the workplace of Nugent and took a photograph of him sitting in the chair and this was handed to the jury.
Mr Dockery then went on to say that the four devices that were seized as part of the investigation, nothing was found.
He described this as a 'conundrum'.
Dt Sgt Naughton said it was 'not a conundrum'.
Mr Dockery replied that on the phone there was nothing untoward found.
The trial continued on Friday at Sligo Circuit Court.
In the prosecution's closing speech, Ms McLaughlin said that Nugent was posing as a young boy from London on 'mylol'.
The first chat with 'Ruby' was initiated by him.
She told him she is 13 years of age and she described how quickly the chat moves to a sexual nature with descriptions of all sorts of what he wants to do.
When 'Ruby' asks if it is for fun, he replies he says he wants to do it for real. He wants to have unprotected sex.
Ms McLaughlin described it as 'highly predatory'.
On the 8th and 9th of September, he referred to his female relative. The barrister told the jury that it was now known that Nugent does have a female relative with the same name. She said this was a 'significant' piece of evidence.
She said Nugent initially said he was 15 and then that age was getting older. He was 16, 17 and then a builder.
When 'Ruby' brought the conversation back to his female relative and asked if he fancies her, he said he did fancy her.
Ms McLaughlin said that what was very chilling was that he said he can fancy her 'if she doesn't tell'.
He also incited 'Ruby' to masturbate, which she said was clearly a sexual act.
The conversation on September 20 was getting more serious about all the things he wanted to do.
He wanted to see pictures of her.
Ms McLaughlin said that all of those things made it clear that Currypie16 committed the offences.
She said that the issue was whether Paul Nugent was Currypie16 and told the jury they heard no evidence found on his phone.
She said it was not the prosecution's case that the phone was used to send the messages.
The real issue was the identification of Paul Nugent as Currypie 16.
She said the contents of the messages themselves had details that were so personal to him.
Mr Dockery said that the evidence was 'so unclear'.
He said on each of the six counts, there has been reasonable doubt.
He said his client had no previous convictions.
He said his phone had not race of conversations with 'Ruby'.
He said his phone had 'nothing on it'.
He said nothing connects Nugent from the four devices that were seized in his home.
He said the prosecution said it was not necessarily the phone that was used.
Mr Dockery said it did matter as it was a key point in the case.
He said there was nothing of evidential found.
He said there were two photographs of a man under a clock but put it to the jury if it was
Paul Nugent and asked them if they can be absolutely sure.
He asked who took them and when were they taken.
He said there were lots of people coming and going in his office and 'anyone could have taken the photograph'.
He said that 'Ruby' was not in a position to say that it was Paul Nugent.
He described 'Ruby' as a 'cagey witness' and said it was all 'very murky'.
He asked why Nugent's desktop computer was not investigated.
He said Nugent told gardaí his phone device was susceptible to 'being hacked'.
He asked the jury to consider how many men are out there working in offices with a female relative of the same name mentioned and who are married with no children. Mr Dockery described it as 'flimsy evidence'.
He told the jury it was 'not a case that can be certain of anything'. He said it has not been proven beyond a standard of reasonable doubt.