A SEXUAL predator who was found with pictures and videos of children as young as four being sexually abused has been described as a “dangerous man who poses an immediate risk to young boys”.

Daniel Byrne-Crowley, 28, has been found guilty of four child sex offences following a two-day trial at Swansea Crown Court.

Byrne-Crowley was charged with three offences of making indecent images of children and one of sexual communication with a child.

He was alleged to have had one Category A image – the most serious type, 11 Category B images, and 10 Category C images.

The offences are said to have taken place between August 2012 and September 2020, while he was alleged to have been inappropriately talking with the child between June 2019 and September 2020.

The defendant, now of Swily Road in Dublin, denied each of the charges.

Following just over half an hour of deliberations, the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on each offence.

“This has been a particularly unpleasant case,” Judge Paul Thomas KC said as he thanked the jury for their efforts.

“The content of some of the conversations was particularly distasteful.

“The evidence I have heard leads me to conclude this is a very dangerous individual who poses an immediate risk to young boys.”

During the trial, prosecutor Helen Randall told the jury that police raided Byrne-Crowley’s home address on Bush Street in Pembroke Dock on October 28, 2020. They seized two phones, a MacBook computer, and an iPad, on which they found 23 child abuse images on his devices – one of which was inaccessible.

Ms Randall said that officers also discovered what appeared to be conversations between the complainant and other adult men discussing indecent images, masturbation, and oral sex.

The police also recovered conversations on the devices with a 10-year-old boy.

Ms Randall said the conversations involved pornography, masturbation, giving the boy a computer, and going to Oakwood theme park.

James Hartson, defending, asked Byrne-Crowley if he had a sexual interest in children.

“Not at all,” the defendant told the jury.

When asked about his relationship with the boy, the defendant replied: “It was a relationship of friendship”.

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Byrne-Crowley said was asked about the messages to other adults and whether he was getting sexual gratification from them.

“That’s not true,” he said. “I’d have fantasies about children but I don’t have a sexual interest in them.”

“How on earth would you interpret those messages other than that?,” Ms Randall asked.

“It’s a fantasy,” he replied.

“Wants and fantasies are completely different things.”

When asked about the indecent images in interview, Byrne-Crowley “claimed he didn’t know how they got on the devices,” Ms Randall said.

Giving evidence, Byrne-Crowley said: “I don’t know. But I know I didn’t purposely download and go in search of those images.”

He later claimed, for the first time in proceedings, that the images could have been on the devices when he bought them second-hand.

Byrne-Crowley was remanded in to custody and will be sentenced on March 7. He was ordered to sign the sex offenders register.