Galway Bay fm newsroom - Former RTÉ producer and Ballinasloe native Kieran Creaven has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.
The 55 year old with an address in Dublin pleaded guilty last December to attempting to groom an under-age girl online.
Kieran Creaven believed he was meeting a thirteen year old girl when he traveled to England in December of last year.
He had contacted the girl through Facebook in July and sent her hundreds of messages.
Their conversations included details of his role in the film and TV industry and quickly turned sexual in nature.
On one occasion Mr. Creaven sent an explicit photo of himself without invitation.
However, Mr. Creaven had unknowingly engaged with a fake Facebook profile, set up by a so-called paedophile hunter group called 'Predator Exposure'.
He flew to Leeds on December 17th to meet the fictitious girl, having previously cancelled another attempted meeting in October.
When he arrived at the meeting point outside a hotel, he was instead confronted by the 'Predator Exposure' group, who streamed the encounter live on Facebook.
Mr Creaven was subsequently arrested and pleaded guilty to two child sexual abuse offences when he appeared before the courts the following morning.
At Leeds Magistrates Court this afternoon, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the offences.
He received 18 months for attempting to meet a child after sexually grooming her and 12 months for attempting to incite a child into sexual activity.
The sentences will run concurrently.
