Grooming suspect is Galway native
The RTE television producer – arrested in the UK and accused of grooming a child for sexual activity – is originally from Ballinasloe.
Fifty-five-year-old Kieran Creaven was arrested in Leeds city centre on Saturday evening after being targeted in a sting operation by online paedophile hunters.
On Monday morning, he was formally charged at Leeds’ Magistrates Court with attempting to meet a 13-year-old ‘girl’ following grooming, and with attempting to cause or incite a 13-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity.
He is alleged to have been grooming the girl – a decoy adult member of the Leeds-based ‘Predator Exposure’ group – since July 1.
The court heard Creaven sent messages of a sexual nature to the girl, as well as an explicit photograph and had travelled from Dublin to Leeds last Saturday to meet her.
Creaven, who is married, was bailed to appear before Leeds Crown Court on December 19, and was allowed to return to his Dublin address. Magistrates made an order that his address cannot be published.
See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.