July 2012

Paedophile lured children to house with playground

A convicted child abuser who broke a court order by playing football with young boys previously built a playground to lure children into his diabolical den.

Gustav Dahm, of Ard na Mara, Pier Road, Kenmare, Co Kerry, and with a current address at Beachside Glen, River Chapel, Gorey, Co Wexford, appeared before Judge Carroll Moran at the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee. 

A photo shows the playground, complete with a brightly coloured child-size train and a life-size scarecrow, in his garden that sick paedophile Gustav Dahm used to lure kids before abusing them.

Last week, the 40-year-old was warned he could be back behind bars unless he stays away from children.

Dahm was before Tralee Circuit Criminal Court last Friday before Judge Carroll Moran because he had broken an undertaking that he would not have any unsupervised contact with children.

He was also found to be in breach of an order that he stay away from his mother’s guesthouse in Co Kerry while there were guests present.

Dahm was convicted in October 2006 of 23 counts of indecent assault, sexual assault and gross indecency involving two boys and four girls. The offences occurred over a 17-year period up to 2003.

Apart from a playground, Dahm lured the children aged from five to 15 to the guesthouse with money, treats and cigarettes.

Dahm, who was born and educated in Kenmare, Co Kerry, and is of German-Austrian parents, had an apartment designed especially to lure the children and had installed expensive disco lights and a sound system.

He allowed them to consume alcohol and smoke cigarettes. He abused them when they were intoxicated and unable to fight him off.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, four of which were suspended if he agreed to certain conditions including that he should have no unsupervised contact with children under 17.

He was released late last year and relocated to Riverchapel, Co Wexford, where last April he admitted speaking to two boys, aged between 10 and 13, and kicking a football with them near his home.

Friday’s court sitting heard from Wexford-based probation officer Catherine Lambert, who said Dahm engaged in some talk with the boys and also kicked a football with them.

“The accused, himself, withdrew from the situation,” Ms Lambert said.

Judge Moran said: “If anything like this happens again it’s possible there will be an application to reactivate the sentence and it’s also possible that I will do that,” he warned.

November 2006

Child Sex Offender Locked Up

Last four years of 10-year sentence suspended to allow paedophile Gustav Dahm to get treatment

ONE of Kerrys most vile and notorious sex offenders will be locked behind bars for the next six years.

Thirty-five-year-old Gustav Dahm of Pier Road in Kenmare had pleaded guilty to over 20 counts of indecent and sexual assault and gross indecency of six children over a 17-year period up to 2003.

The offences occurred in Mr Dahms family home, at his apartment and in nearby woodland. Some of his assaults involved the accused man masturbating in front of his child victim and making them taste his semen and telling the child that it tasted like ice-cream. Some of the abuse occurred on a daily basis. In another incident, Mr Dahm tied up the child in a disused warehouse and engaged in oral sex in what Judge Carroll Moran described as a type of sexual bondage.

The abuse came to light when one victim made a statement to the Rape Crisis Centre at the behest of concerned relatives.

Expert psychological reports handed into a previous court hearing told how Gustav Dahm himself had been abused by a visitor to Kenmare over a period of three months when he was a teenager.

Mr Dahm told psychologists how he began abusing one of his victims shortly after he was abused himself. He told the Medical Institute that he did not release his six-year-old victim when he struggled because he thought that if he tolerated the abuse he would have discovered that it was an enjoyable experience. The report also stated that Mr Damn was bullied at school, particularly over his name and his German origins.

At Tralee Circuit Criminal Court last week, barrister John OSullivan addressed Judge Carroll Moran on behalf of Gustav Dahm.

He said that it would be in the communitys interest and everybodys interest that his client continue to get treatment, treatment that would not be available in prison. Mr OSullivan also pointed out that Mr Dahms early guilty plea meant that the victims could get closure far sooner than if each of the offences were contested where victims would have to give evidence in court.

Judge Carroll Moran said that the case of Gustav Dahm was a difficult one. He acknowledged the significance of Mr Dahm pleading guilty which Judge Moran described as being significant.

If he pleaded not guilty, each of the six victims cases would be heard separately and there would have been at least six separate trials. The plea also brings early closure and brings certainty to the prosecution case, Judge Moran said.

He added that a guilty plea is also an acknowledgement of wrong-doing to victims and to society at large.

In aggravation, Judge Moran said that Mr Dahm was guilty of 24 counts of different sexual offences.

I have to be blunt about it. It was debauchery of six people, four of them very young. This was a continuous sequence of offending, intermittently over 17 years.

Judge Moran imposed a 10-year sentence, suspending the last four years on condition that Mr Dahm gets treatment. He also has to obey the directions of the probation services and must not commit an offence of a sexual nature. Neither is Mr Dahm to have any unsupervised contact with children under the age of 17 years

Dressed in a navy suit, Mr Dahm showed no emotion as sentence was passed. Several of his victims were in court, as were members of his family.