In 2018, the Offender Database confirmed that a man anonymised as QD, then 38, of Newry, County Down, was convicted at Newry Crown Court of the sexual assault of his two-year-old son, Jack. The “depraved” details of the case emerged during a 2019 appeal hearing, where it was revealed that the assault occurred in 2011 while QD was babysitting the boy. When the child’s mother returned home, the toddler described being sexually assaulted by his father. When confronted, QD allegedly stated that “normal sex did nothing for him” and admitted to watching child sexual abuse images on the mother’s computer.
The court heard that QD had a history of trying to “corrupt” his romantic partners to facilitate his obsession with abusing young children. In 2015, another woman who lived with him in England reported that QD had used her laptop to show her indecent images of children and suggested they have a child together, specifically so he could sexually abuse the infant. This second witness claimed QD explicitly told her he had already “had sex” with his young son before the boy’s mother had taken him back to Poland.
QD was initially sentenced to just five months in prison by HHJ Kerr QC at Newry Crown Court, a sentence that was widely criticised. Upon his release after serving only two and a half months, he faced a challenge by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), who argued the term was “unduly lenient.” In May 2019, Lord Justice Stephens in the Court of Appeal ruled that the original sentence was indeed insufficient, noting that the trial judge had ignored the profound emotional harm caused to the family and the calculated nature of the defendant’s predatory behaviour.
As a result of the appeal, the Court of Appeal quashed the five-month sentence. It replaced it with a three-year probation order to ensure QD participated in a Community Sex Offender Group Work Programme. Additionally, the court imposed a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO), which the trial judge had previously declined to impose. QD is on the Sex Offenders Register and is managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Any breach of his strict probation conditions or SOPO requirements will result in his immediate arrest and a return to prison.
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