THE JURY at a Circuit Court trial in Longford against a businessman pleading not guilty to possession of child pornography heard evidence of a find of a substantial number of illegal images in a field outside Longford town.
Thomas McNally (52), Foynes Court, Longford, is before Judge Michael White facing two charges of unlawfully possessing child pornography at Foynes Court on February 6th and 7th, 2006.
In his opening address, Desmond Dockery SC, prosecuting, said the Director of Public Prosecutions would set out to prove Mr McNally, who runs a Mass card business in Longford, was connected to the significant number of pornographic images of children found on farmland outside Longford town five years ago.
The jury was told that 300 images, many of naked children, were discovered in the vicinity of a large safe that had been stolen from Mr McNally’s home.
Giving evidence to the court, Garda James Mangan said following a call from the landowner he had attended the scene at the townland of Clonanny.
There he observed A4 sheets of paper blowing around the field and in a drain adjacent to a safe. He said the safe had been forced open and that there was an accordion file adjacent to it.
The garda gave evidence that the safe contained bank statements with the name of Thomas McNally, a set of car keys and two passports in the name of Thomas McNally and Tanya Mulryan. Garda Mangan said the safe also had A4 images in it.
Garda Mangan gave evidence that it started to rain heavily and he gathered up the images and proceeded to stuff them into a file to keep them dry.
He said he noted that some of the images had handwritten messages on them.
Pádraig Dwyer SC, for Mr McNally, asked why the garda had not brought evidence bags with him. Garda Mangan said this was not standard procedure and that evidence bags were not standard issue in squad cars.
The garda said the landowner had helped him to gather up the images.
Mr Dwyer asked whether it was appropriate to have a civilian gather evidence at a crime scene. Garda Mangan said the situation made that occasion different to most crime scenes.
He had been faced with a situation where he had to put the material in a folder or let it be destroyed, he said.
The jury of six men and six women heard further evidence from Garda William Doherty, who said Mr McNally had attended the Garda station twice on February 7th to report two passports were missing from his office at New Street, but he had not reported the theft of a safe.
It is anticipated that the trial could last up to two weeks.