Locations
Market Street, Omagh, County Tyrone, BT7
Description
A serial child sex pervert exposed by the Sunday World after he planned to fly to London to shoot a ‘porno’ with young teenager is back behind bars, we can reveal.
Sleazy paedophile Gavin O’Kane has been caught for the third time, not only distributing vile child abuse images but also of sending a grossly offensive communication.
And he’s also being done for possessing cocaine and cannabis – in fact he blames his drug misuse for his shocking behaviour.
The 33-year-old from Market Street in Omagh, Co Tyrone was refused bail despite his barrister arguing his client’s rehabilitation could be hampered if he was forced to live amongst child perverts just like him!
In July 2020 the Sunday World exposed O’Kane for the first time after he’d been caught at Belfast International Airport where he planned to fly to London to meet a 13-year-old ‘girl’ with the aim of filming himself having sex with her.
However, he was arrested before boarding the flight to Luton and it transpired, he had been caught by a PSNI sting operation and the person ‘offering’ the 13-year-old girl for sex was in fact an undercover police officer.
At the time when we doorstepped him at his flat in Market Street, Omagh we revealed he lived just a few hundred yards from a primary school.
Now he has made admissions to the PSNI about a raft of fresh child sex offences, but he still lives at the same address.
At his trial in 2020 Dungannon Crown Court was told he also had over 6,000 vile images of children being abused and some of the pictures and videos included some of the most disturbing category.
We confronted the snivelling pervert to ask why he thought making a pornographic film with a child was acceptable behaviour.
The cocky sex beast, who was 30-years-old at the time came to his door looking dishevelled and with no top on and said he had nothing to say to us about his actions.
“I don’t want to talk to you about that,” he snapped.
O’Kane still lives in the heart of the busy town centre with shops, pubs and fast food takeaways nearby but he also lives just a few hundred yards from Omagh Primary School.
This week it emerged he is back behind bars after he was caught yet again by undercover police officers who were concerned about his recent behaviour despite the fact he’s currently subject to a Probation Order after avoiding prison last year for possessing a hoard of indecent child images.
He’s accused of 45 charges comprising 40 counts of possessing and distributing indecent images as well as a single count of sending a grossly offensive communication of an indecent or obscene nature.
He is further accused of breaching a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) by using a remote media storage device as well as possessing quantities of cocaine and cannabis.
Offending is largely alleged to have occurred on various dates between 24 July and 3 August.
A detective constable told Dungannon Magistrates Court police were made aware that O’Kane had been engaging online in highly sexualised conversation around child abuse with two males who were in fact undercover officers in England, over roughly a four-month period.
In July he sent them around 20 indecent images he had stored in an iCloud.
On receipt of this information police searched O’Kane’s home and his phone was seized along with amounts of cannabis and cocaine.
The images have yet to be categorised but, “It’s fair to say they are in the higher sector of seriousness,” said the detective.
O’Kane was arrested and made full admissions to the allegations during interview.
Objecting to bail the detective said, “He has 36 previous convictions and is currently under a Probation Order handed down by the court for similar offending. This is our third investigation into the defendant’s behaviour over a five-year period into child abuse images and he has admitted again accessing such images in recent months.”
A defence solicitor accepted the application for bail was difficult, but said, “My client took a very forthright, pragmatic approach and made full admissions therefore not putting the prosecution to the bother of further scientific and forensic examination of the devices seized.
“The discovery of illegal substances factor quite clearly and lead to the more substantive offending.”
The barrister also told the court his client could be made worse if he was placed with other child perverts like him.
“If he is remanded in custody he will be placed with persons who have perhaps committed similar type of offending and that may ultimately be a retrograde step for any potential rehabilitation,” he argued.
District Judge Michael Ranaghan however refused bail due to a risk of reoffending and failure to comply with conditions.
O’Kane will appear again by video-link at Omagh Magistrates Court in two weeks.
He first appeared under the radar of the police in 2016 when he started storing illegal videos and images on his Plat Station and laptop.
An undercover police officer was contacted by O’Kane expressing an interest in images.
Asked what age he preferred, O’Kane replied, “Five to 12-year olds but I always dream of a 10-11-12 year old.”
Later, he sent videos to the officer depicting brutal, sexual acts on female children and communication on 25 July 2016, contained particularly shocking suggestions of child abuse, too graphic and disturbing to publish.
Despite under investigation, in April 2018 O’Kane began engagement with a second undercover officer posing as living in England with a young step-daughter.
O’Kane disclosed a “Sexual interest in preteen girls” and enquired about having sex with the fictitious child.
He then booked a flight to Luton, on his understanding he would be met by the officer, whom he now referred to as “Good mate”.
But O’Kane was arrested at Belfast International Airport at 7am on 8 June 2018. His mobile phone contained thousands of images, many in the highest category.