Diego Andrade: child assault while on bail after a sexual-assault conviction
He entered Ireland from Bolivia on a student visa in December 2018. By October 2020 he had 19 convictions and was on bail after a sexual-assault conviction when he sexually assaulted a sleeping four-year-old boy.
Diego Andrade's case was not a first encounter with the criminal courts. The sentencing court heard that his record included sexual assault, theft, possession of stolen property and public-order offences. His attack on a four-year-old occurred while he was on bail following conviction for sexually assaulting an adult woman.
The attack witnessed by the child's mother
On 31 October 2020, the boy was asleep beside his mother after a gathering at a Dublin house. She woke to find Andrade touching her son's genitalia. She photographed him and chased him away; he left his phone behind, giving Gardaí both identification evidence and another line of inquiry.
Andrade later pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting the child. The court was told that the boy suffered extreme anxiety and sleep disruption and required psychological support.
Child-abuse material on the abandoned phone
When Gardaí examined the phone, they found a video depicting children engaged in sexual activity. The sentencing report states that Andrade accepted forwarding it to two other people. The judge also described his attempt to implicate the child's mother as a particularly repellent feature of the case.
A student route followed by expulsion and 19 convictions
Andrade was a Bolivian national who arrived in December 2018 on a student visa. At the November 2020 bail hearing, the court was told that he had been expelled from his course for non-attendance, worked only sporadically, had no verified address and intended to travel to Spain.
By sentencing in July 2021, the court was told he had accumulated 19 previous convictions. Public reports reviewed for this file do not provide a complete conviction-by-conviction schedule, so the file does not invent one.
Consecutive custody and a leave-State condition
Andrade was already serving nine months for the adult sexual assault. Judge Melanie Greally imposed three years for the child assault, suspended the final six months and ordered the active two-and-a-half-year term to run consecutively.
The suspended portion required him to leave Ireland within 14 days of release, avoid unsupervised access to children and not return for 20 years from departure. That is a sentencing condition. The sources located do not establish whether he departed or whether immigration authorities separately enforced removal.
Case chronology
- December 2018: Andrade enters Ireland from Bolivia on a student visa.
- Before October 2020: He is convicted of sexually assaulting an adult woman and released on bail.
- 31 October 2020: He sexually assaults a sleeping four-year-old boy in Dublin.
- 6 November 2020: A District Court refuses bail on the child-assault and abuse-material charges.
- 2021: He receives nine months for the earlier adult sexual assault.
- 12 July 2021: The Circuit Court imposes a consecutive active term of two and a half years.
A transparent cost illustration
The Irish Prison Service reported a 2024 average of €99,072 per available staffed prison space, excluding capital expenditure. Applying that later benchmark to the nine-month term and consecutive two-and-a-half-year term produces a conditional three-and-a-quarter-year illustration of €321,984.
This is not a case invoice. Actual custody, remission, historic rates and marginal spending differ. It excludes Garda, prosecution, courts, legal aid, probation, immigration enforcement, counselling and victim-support costs.