Ex-Navy officer jailed for extra year over child sex fantasy chats with undercover police

Tom Tuite

A Westmeath-based electronic engineer who was on bail when he chatted online with an undercover police officer about child sex fantasies has been jailed for an extra year.

Ex-Royal Navy officer, Mark Barlow (62), had been awaiting trial for possessing thousands of child sexual abuse images and videos at his Westmeath home at the time when he interacted with the operative and exchanged a series of messages over three days.

In December 2025, Barlow, formerly of Killucan, was jailed for two years following a series of disturbing online chats in 2023.

At Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court this week, he confirmed his guilty pleas to additional charges under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, for possessing and distributing more child abuse material between January 6th and 8th, 2025.

It consisted of social media exchanges with another undercover officer, detailing fantasies about girls aged 0 -12.

Judge Keenan Johnson heard that Barlow was due to be released in June next year, but noted the latest offence happened while on bail for his previous case.

The judge imposed a consecutive two-year sentence, but suspended the final 12 months on condition that Barlow does not re-offend for the following five years.

The court heard he mistakenly thought that his discussions about his sexual interests would not be classified as child sexual abuse material.

A pre-sentence report described him as a low risk of reoffending, but concerns were raised that while he had been attending counselling in the community to rehabilitate, that was no longer available in custody.

When Barlow was jailed in December at the same court, Judge Kenneth Connolly had said that he had to take into account the nature and vast amount of material featuring young girls aged six to mid-teens, which he described as "nothing short of disgusting".

The father-of-three was identified as a suspect after an initial investigation by Yorkshire and Humberside Police and Europol.

Barlow had been a user called Dave, with a screen name "Wow, that's tight" on an internet platform with indecent images of children.

From May 2nd to June 6th, 2023, he engaged with the undercover officer using the name Andrew.

The officer purported to be a paedophile father sexually abusing his children. During a series of explicit exchanges, they discussed child sex abuse, which Barlow later told gardaí was "purely fantasy on his part".

The Internet Protocol (IP) number was traced to the accused's home, where gardaí attended on September 29th, 2023.

They seized his laptop and tablet computers, and phones, which had an estimated 10,000 images and 50 videos of child abuse.

They were on the child explicit and child exposure scale, of girls, some featured engaging in sexual activity with males.

The court heard that he worked in the tech sector after 15 years in the navy and supported his family financially; however, his marriage had broken down.

Barlow, who then had no prior criminal convictions, also told the investigating officers that he had been bored and away from home a lot due to work and was drinking heavily. He had told the court he was appalled by his actions and had been attending therapy.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112.