A teacher who engaged in sexually explicit online conversations with a young schoolgirl for over a year, including asking her for naked pictures of herself, has had “a career thrown away through fantasy,” a court has heard.
John Murphy (42), a married father of one from Ferncourt Crescent, Ballycullen, Dublin, pleaded guilty at a sitting of Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court to a charge of the sexual exploitation of a child between June 2017 and June 2018.
The Galway native, who was a teacher of mathematics and science in a school in Tallaght at the time of the offence, also pleaded guilty to a separate charge of the possession of child pornography between December 2007 and December 2010.
Detective Garda Suzanne Ford gave evidence that the case arose after the schoolgirl’s mother examined her daughter’s Instagram account and discovered it contained hundreds of texts between Murphy and the girl which were “peppered with explicit sexual conversations.”
In the messages the teacher, who resigned from his job in 2022, told the young schoolgirl that he wanted to take her virginity, as well as asking her for naked pictures of herself.
Det Garda Ford said there were texts where Murphy asked the girl, who lived in Co Wicklow, if she wanted a general relationship or a “friendship with benefits” and to “see where it goes”.
He also encouraged her to “be brave and meet me” and they discussed the possibility of arranging to meet in St Stephen’s Green in Dublin, although they never actually met in person.
Age of consent
The court heard that the girl had initially told Murphy she was 17 but shortly after they began texting told him she was 16 when she was actually 15.
In one text, he remarked that it was “just a pity plans to change the age of consent never happened”.
Murphy also said that the age of consent was “pretty arbitrary”, adding: “It is 15 in most of Europe and who is to say they are wrong.”
When the girl asked him if he had any kinks, Murphy replied: “Apart from liking teenagers?”
Det Garda Ford told counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DDP), James Kelly BL, that the tone of messages escalated after a while.
Det Garda Ford said two devices, which were seized from Murphy’s home in January 2019 after the girl’s mother had reported the issue to gardaí, were found to contain child abuse imagery.
The court heard two movies containing the most sexually explicit form of child pornography were found on a Toshiba laptop, as well as nine chat logs with a child containing sexually explicit material. Two other similar chat logs were discovered on a Samsung hard drive.
Under cross-examination by counsel for the defendant, Paul Murray SC, Det Garda Ford accepted that Murphy had made no attempt to hide his identity from the girl as he had told her his name, where he lived and that he was a schoolteacher.
Det Garda Ford also agreed that Murphy was “not a mastermind” and “naive”.
'No line was crossed'
The court heard that Murphy remarked to gardaí while they were searching his house that he had hoped that “no line was crossed”.
Det Garda Ford acknowledged that Murphy could not have known that the girl was 15 at the time of their text exchanges.
In a victim impact statement, the girl, who did not attend court, said her desire for exploration and the trust she had in people had been exploited when she was just 15, and the period was “the worst time of my life”.
“He exploited my personality for his own perverted needs,” she said.
The girl said she had initially started chatting with Murphy online out of curiosity, but their conversations quickly turned sexual and she felt “trapped”.
“He knew so much about me that I felt I could not stop talking to him. I felt he might come after me,” she added.
While Murphy had never explicitly threatened her, the girl said she still felt there was “an atmosphere of coercion”.
The girl said she had also developed an irrational fear of men with beards. The court also heard she developed mental health problems, anorexia and post-traumatic stress disorder, while she had also struggled in school because of what had happened.
She described how she would go without food for up to four days in order to make herself more desirable. She also suffered panic attacks that someone was watching her, and she used to have nightmares that Murphy would find her and do explicit things to her.
“I was left feeling dirty and used and felt more like a property than a person,” she said.
The court heard she now had tattoos on her arms where she had burnt herself after becoming angry with herself and her body.
The girl said all her romantic relationships had suffered because she could no longer trust that people would not harm her.
Fall from grace
In mitigation, Mr Murray said his client wished to issue an unreserved apology for his actions as well as offering his sincere remorse.
“He fully accepts that what happened should not have happened,” said Mr Murray.
He pointed out that Murphy, who has no previous conviction and had suffered “a complete fall from grace”.
Mr Murray said the teacher had effectively suffered a life-long sentence as he would no longer be employable anywhere in his chosen profession.
“It is a career thrown away through fantasy,” Mr Murray remarked.
He claimed Murphy had also suffered unwanted attention in his local community from publicity about the case and had been ostracised from martial arts clubs of which he had been a member.
Judge Cormac Quinn said he would issue his sentence on Friday.
