WARNING: Readers may find the following report upsetting<\/p>\n
A man who said he wanted to kidnap and eat a child, and who distributed videos and images of children being raped, was jailed for eight years on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Convicted paedophile, John Weber, (48), from Limerick, was finally named publicly after Judge Colin Daly lifted reporting restrictions in the case. Weber\u2019s home address cannot be published.<\/p>\n
Weber pleaded guilty to 14 charges, including one count of possession of child sex abuse material; four counts of distributing the material; and nine counts of producing the illegal material.<\/p>\n
In \u201cdeeply disturbing\u201d online chats with other paedophiles, Weber said he wanted to \u201ckidnap torture and rape children\u201d, and he \u201cinvited others to travel\u201d to a location to do this, said judge Daly.<\/p>\n
Limerick Circuit Criminal Court heard Weber had 111 videos and images of child sex abuse, including very young children being raped, on an iPhone and iPad that garda\u00ed found in his home, during planned searches of the property, in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n
Judge Daly said the \u201cmajority\u201d of the videos and images were \u201cCategory A\u201d material, meaning they were the most explicit on a scale of officially categorised child sex abuse material.<\/p>\n
Weber also spoke to other paedophiles online about \u201csnuff\u201d movies, which are films that depict killings typically in the context of sexual violence.<\/p>\n
He told others in online chats that he lived next to a creche, and that he had stood on a balcony, with his penis exposed, while watching children below him.<\/p>\n
The court heard material found on Weber\u2019s electronic devices included the rape of a six-month-old baby, an 18-month-old toddler, a violent rape of a six-year-old girl who was clutching a teddy bear at the time, an eight-year-old boy whose hands were tied with chains, and a five-year-old child tied in chains and dressed in fetish and bondage clothing.<\/p>\n
Weber communicated with other paedophiles on social media apps KIK and Snapchat, Session, and TeleGaurd.<\/p>\n
The paedophile told others online that he wanted to cannibalise a child, the court previously heard.<\/p>\n
Weber stated: \u201cI would love to kill a child today, I would love to be a murderer.\u201d…\u201cI wanna cannabilise a child.\u201d…\u201cI know how to make a child bleed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weber also stated: \u201cThere is nothing as good as a bleeding child\u201d…\u201cMost kids I see I want to rape\u201d.<\/p>\n
Judge Daly said the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, in the United States, made two referrals about Weber to garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
This triggered an investigation led by Det Garda James Muldowney of Divisional Protective Services Unit (DPSU), Henry Street Garda Station, Limerick.<\/p>\n
Muldowney said Weber stated in online chats with others that he \u201cwould love to torture, rape and kill a child, and that he (Weber) has been so close a few times\u201d.<\/p>\n
Weber also sent his therapist a video of a naked eight-year-old boy and the counsellor immediately alerted garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
Muldowney described Weber as \u201can immediate threat\u201d and \u201crisk\u201d to children and a \u201cdanger to the community\u201d.<\/p>\n
Weber claimed he had been sexually abused as a child and that he had been sexually assaulted while working as a sex worker in England.<\/p>\n
Weber told garda\u00ed he was HIV positive but that he was not taking prescribed medication to stop the spread of the virus to others and that he was having unprotected sexual intercourse with others.<\/p>\n
Weber stated in online chats with others: \u201cYou can help me find lads to infect today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weber handed a letter of remorse to his barrister Liam Carroll, who in turn shared it with the prosecution and the judge.<\/p>\n
Carroll told the court that Weber\u2019s letter was \u201ca further acknowledgement of his wrongdoing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Weber told garda\u00ed he had been accessing child sex abuse material since 1997, when he was aged 19.<\/p>\n
Judge Daly said the conversations between Weber and others online was \u201cextremely serious\u201d and the material found on Weber\u2019s phone and iPad was \u201cabhorrent\u201d \u201cdepraved\u201d and contained \u201cextreme sexual violence on children\u201d.<\/p>\n
Judge Daly said Weber\u2019s conversations with others may have also \u201cincited\u201d others to act out \u201cviolent and departed\u201d abuse of children.<\/p>\n
Weber also spoke of young relatives in a \u201cvile\u201d way when discussing child sex abuse with others online, it was heard.<\/p>\n
Judge Daly said Weber \u201csought out\u201d child sex abuse material and shared it with \u201cother paedophiles\u201d and continued doing so a year after his house was first searched by garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
Judge Daly said a probation report concluded that Weber was of \u201chigher than average risk of reoffending\u201d, and that it appeared Weber was \u201cindicative of someone who had become lost in his own depravity\u201d.<\/p>\n
Weber had a history of offending, and was also convicted previously for stealing from an organisation to which he had held a \u201csenior position\u201d, said the judge.<\/p>\n
The judge commended Det Garda Muldowney for the success of the garda investigation into Weber, as well as the professional and sensitive way Muldowney had explained the background to the case in court.<\/p>\n
The judge reduced a headline sentence of 12 years to 10 years with the final two years suspended.<\/p>\n
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie\/services\/helpline\/ or visit Rape Crisis Help.\u00a0In the case of an emergency, always dial 999\/112.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARNING: Readers may find the following report upsetting A man who said he wanted to kidnap and eat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-575910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}