A judge has called for greater restrictions to prevent children accessing pornography as she sentenced a teenage boy to 18 months detention for the sexual assault of a young woman walking home alone in Cork.

Judge Catherine Staines said one disturbing element of the case was that the boy, who was aged 13 at the time of the crime, had been accessing hard-core pornography on his phone from the age of 11.

“It is shocking that this is available to vulnerable, impressionable young people. Clearly companies are making vast sums of money from selling pornographic material. More rigorous restrictions should be placed on them to prevent this harmful material being available to young children,” she said.