Jennifer Carroll MacNeill

A Fine Gael TD has told a court she had to question her personal safety for the first time while being harrassed in 2020.

The court heard he wrongly believed there was a chance Ms Carroll MacNeill would respond to him because she hadn’t blocked him. I didn’t know what the nature of it was,” she said. I don’t like to admit it, but it rocked my personal life and my sense of security. After what was described as, “three days of a barrage of messages and explicit content,” Ms Carroll MacNeill went to Gardaí for advice. In her victim impact statement, Ms Carroll MacNeill said she didn’t choose to be sexualised in this way. She also spoke about how the online harassment affected her while on the campaign trial.

Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll McNeill provided a victim impact statement to the court today following a campaign of harassment by an internet troll who sent ...

Was I going to be attacked? Was I going to be hurt? I do not want to be a victim. And it was more than that, but I haven't been able to put into words really what exactly it was that I felt. But that morning, suddenly and without warning, I was afraid for the first time. But because some man decided to send me sexually explicit videos, it is there for ever more for everyone to see.

A Fine Gael TD has told a court she had to question her personal safety for the first time while campaigning during the last general election because of ...

The court heard he wrongly believed there was a chance Ms Carroll MacNeill would respond to him because she hadn’t blocked him. I don’t like to admit it, but it rocked my personal life and my sense of security." She said she also found herself wondering what her harasser’s motives were. In her victim impact statement, Ms Carroll MacNeill said she didn’t choose to be sexualised in this way. After what was described as, 'three days of a barrage of messages and explicit content,' Ms Carroll MacNeill went to Gardaí for advice. She also spoke about how the online harassment affected her while on the campaign trial.

43-year-old Gerard Culhane pleaded guilty to sending Jennifer Carroll MacNeill videos of a man masturbating.

Was it just a video? She added: “ I felt there was a real, actual risk to me. “I do not choose to be sexualised in this way, to be in media articles with sexual content.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill took to the stand to read her victim impact statement during the sentence hearing of 43-year-old Gerard Culhane.

He acknowledged the fear she would have experienced and did not intend to cause distress or alarm,” Mr Monahan said. Counsel said Culhane later enrolled in a computer course which led to him being introduced to the internet. He said the videos and images were not of himself rather he had downloaded them from pornography sites. She received a further message that night which was a thumbs up saying “Stay warm gorgeous” with a second thumbs up. She contacted the gardaí to report what had happened and seek advice. A warrant was executed to search his home in Limerick in July 2020. Det Sgt Kilpatrick said Culhane immediately admitted that he knew why the gardaí were there. She said there was “a real actual risk” to her. She said she didn’t want to adjourn the case but was reluctant to finalise the case without that report. Judge Patricia Ryan adjourned the case for finalisation to October 21, after she acknowledged that a previously ordered Probation Report had not been prepared for the hearing. “We all needed to get on with the job”, she said. “But in my mind, whether rationally or not, this person, whoever they were, now had every opportunity to simply walk up and see me up close and be near me.