A YOUNG WOMAN told a court that she was left “completely broken” after an ex-boyfriend circulated intimate images of her in a ‘revenge porn’ case.

At Ennis Circuit Court, the offender, a 21-year-old west Clare man, has walked free after Judge Francis Comerford imposed a fully suspended three year and two month prison term on him.

Judge Comerford said that the third-level student would carry the suspended 38-month prison term “as a stain on his character for the rest of his life”.

Judge Comerford said that in the ‘revenge porn’ case the main aggravating factors were that the girl was only 15 at the time of the offence and one of the intimate images circulated was a full-frontal nude of the teenager.

He said that the image was at the highest level of intimate images in terms of offending.

The prosecution comes under ‘Coco’s Law’, formally known as the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020, which criminalises the non-consensual distribution of intimate images.

Judge Comerford said that the accused had circulated the images to a small number of people but effectively it was to the world as all it takes is for one to take a ‘screen-grab’ of an image and forward it on.

The judge said that the motivation was done for revenge and done to punish and “it is all very well to say that the accused was feeling sorry for himself but he was not entitled to do harm to someone”.

Judge Comerford said that sending the accused to prison “would be potentially a crushing sentence”, taking into account his mental frailty and vulnerability.

He said that the interests of society would not be particularly served by imposing a partially suspended prison term where the man has a well-documented history of self harm and there was a very significant attempt at self-harm in July 2025.

Judge Comerford said that the accused has an ongoing and sustained battle with self harm because his mental health issues are so well established and before his involvement with the criminal justice system he was struggling with life in a very significant way.

The accused had just turned 18 at the time of the offence, which he pleaded guilty to on 15 November 2022 to publishing or distributing an intimate image of the female without her consent with the intention to cause her harm contrary to Section 2(1) and (3) of the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2001.

Previously, in court, Detective Garda Nadine Keane, now of Roxboro Garda Station, Limerick, said that the accused had in his possession a collage of four intimate images of the female on 15 November 2022 and posted them to his online Snapchat stories on the same date.

Det Garda Keane said that the images were left online for a number of hours before they were taken down by the teenager who posted them.

Judge Comerford praised the resilience of the injured party in the case and quoted from the woman’s victim impact statement in his sentencing.

In the victim impact statement, the now 19-year-old said: “I want the court to understand what happened to a real 15-year-old girl who was frightened, vulnerable and hurting and thoroughly deserved better and deserves to move forward from something that was never my fault.”

The adult teenager said: “I am still here and I am able to say that I didn’t deserve this and the shame was not mine to carry.

“I am still here, I am still capable of having a future, and I am still capable of being happy, and I still capable of becoming the person I was always meant to be

“What happened to me is always something I experienced, but this does have to be the thing that defines me.”

Judge Comerford said that he would impose a headline sentence of four years and eight months but reduced the sentence to 38 months due to the plea of guilty, the accused being a first-time offender and not offending since.

Judge Comerford said that he would fully suspend the 38 months.

The judge said that no details could be reported that would identify the complainant in the case.