A Limerick man who distributed child sexual abuse images online and encouraged a man to perform a sex act on children has been jailed for 18 months, with the final six months suspended.Terence Fitzpatrick (46), of Donnellan’s Buildings, Rosbrien, Limerick, was also given two concurrent 12-month jail sentences for possessing the illegal material.At Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing sexual images of children, and two counts of distributing the illegal images to others, via the Instagram and Whisper apps.Prosecuting barrister John O’Sullivan told the court Fitzpatrick traded sexual images of children with others on social media apps.When another Whisper user messaged Fitzpatrick “what are you into?”, he replied “the younger the better”.Between them, Fitzpatrick and the other Whisper account-user traded eight explicit images of girls aged between 10 and 14. Images of 14-year old girls with their breasts exposed that were later found by gardaí on Fitzpatrick’s mobile phone, and on his digital cloud storage, were “not” deemed to be illegal, said O’Sullivan.One of nine unique images found on Fitzpatrick’s devices, of a 10-year old girl, was considered to be the most explicit, and graded by gardaí as a “Category A” image.Fitzpatrick also conversed with a man online who said his two children, aged (7) and (9), were inappropriately touching him and one other.O’Sullivan said Fitzpatrick instructed the man to get the two children “naked” and perform a sex act on them. The barrister said the man messaged Fitzpatrick afterwards telling him he had “complied” with his request.O’Sullivan said Fitzpatrick told gardaí he did not believe the other man actually had children, and that he believed it was all a “fantasy”.In February 2022, Fitzpatrick was arrested by gardaí attached to the Limerick Divisional Protective Services Unit. They received an alert from the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the United States after Fitzpatrick shared a sexual image of a child on Instagram on November 29th, 2021.During a Garda search of his home, Fitzpatrick admitted possessing and distributing the illegal material which he had stored on his mobile phone, a USB stick and digital cloud storage.Fitzpatrick began seeking images of children in September 2021 when he engaged with a fake Instagram account, which he believed was being run by a 14-year-old girl, who he called “sweetheart” and “beautiful princess”, and he told her, “love you loads”.When the fake account messaged Fitzpatrick seeking naked images of “young teen girls”, he replied: “Can I have naked pics of you haha”.Fitzpatrick sent the fake profile eight images and one video, resulting in the fake account being closed by Instagram.Fitzpatrick’s barrister, Donal Cronin, instructed by solicitor Sarah Ryan, said Fitzpatrick had been bored and in an “unstimulating” job when he sought out the images. He had not come to Garda attention since.The barrister told the court that Fitzpatrick’s family relationships were now strained and his wife had left him after she found out about his illegal activities online.In mitigation, the barrister said Fitzpatrick, who was supported in court by his mother, had pleaded guilty and co-operated fully with the Garda investigation.Judge Colin Daly said the “harm done” to the children in the images traded by Fitzpatrick was “obvious”.The judge said the sharing of child abuse material “drives demand for more images, more children to be targeted, more children to be abused, and more children to be exploited”.Daly said Fitzpatrick’s activities online were “completely reprehensible” and that Fitzpatrick’s “seeking out” of sexual images of children indicated “a level of premeditation”.The judge said he believed “headline” sentences of three years on each count of distribution and two years on each count of possession were appropriate.The judge said he took into consideration Fitzpatrick’s guilty pleas, “genuine remorse”, “willingness” to engage with rehabilitation services, his “insight”, as well as a psychological report that stated Fitzpatrick was of below-average risk of reoffending. He reduced each of the two distribution sentences to 18 months, to run concurrently to one another.He reduced each of the two possession counts to 12 months, to run concurrently with one another and with the distribution sentences.The judge ordered that Fitzpatrick be added to a national sex offenders’ register, abide by a 12-month post-release supervision order, and engage with a sex-offender treatment programme.