Tom Humphries

Tom Humphries is a former sports journalist and columnist who wrote for The Irish Times while volunteering at a North Dublin Gaelic games club. His career as a leading sportswriter was ended after his history of child sexual abuse emerged in 2011. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to a number of child sex offences and received a year imprisonment sentence. Maeve Sheehan, writing in the Sunday Independent, noted as his prison sentence concluded in 2019: "As one of the few sex offenders who was famous before he went to prison, his crimes ensure his name will stay on the public radar for years to come. But as the paedophile, not the writer". and grew up in Foxfield, Raheny, in Dublin. He was educated at St Joseph's Christian Brothers School in Fairview. He has a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Higher Diploma in Education from University College Dublin (UCD). He ran unsuccessfully for the office of President of the UCD Student Union in 1986; Ulick Stafford defeated him.

The Irish Times Humphries began writing columns for The Irish Times during the early 1990s. and was nominated for a William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. The book is not structured chronologically, but rather in the context of Quinn's career swansong, the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan.

Gaelic games Humphries volunteered at a North Dublin Gaelic games club.

Sexual abuse conviction In 2011, Humphries's child sex abuse came to light when his daughter discovered messages of a sexual nature on an old mobile phone of Humphries; the messages were exchanged between Humphries and a 14-year-old girl with an eating disorder who played at the North Dublin Gaelic games club with which Humphries volunteered. He was charged in March 2014. The Irish Times terminated his employment after his guilty plea. Judge Karen O'Connor sentenced Humphries to years in jail on 24 October 2017. When sentencing, she took into account Humphries's guilty plea and the two character references for the defence from the journalist David Walsh and the hurler Donal Óg Cusack. The chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre was surprised and disappointed about the sentence's leniency.

Prison Humphries began serving his sentence at the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise.

Humphries was offered therapy but declined, having earlier claimed he was remorseful for his crimes while in court. While serving his sentence he called a prison officer an "uneducated turnkey". The officer was reported by the Irish Independent at the time to have responded: "I would rather be an uneducated turnkey than an educated paedophile".