Gardaí are continuing their investigations in relation to the downloading of 500 Internet images of child pornography, a court was told yesterday.
William John Roche (23), single, of Bawnjames, Rosbercon, New Ross, Co Wexford, had pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography images at his home contrary to the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act on May 27th, 2002.
The case came before Judge Donnchadh Ó Buachalla at New Ross District Court yesterday. Judge Ó Buachalla had previously refused jurisdiction in the case and had referred the matter to Wexford Circuit Court for hearing.
However, at yesterday's court hearing, defence solicitor Mr Michael Heffernan said that there was a Garda difficulty regarding how a number of images were downloaded which he felt might have a bearing on the case. He stressed that the images might be considerably less than previously indicated.
Although the Book of Evidence has been served in the case, Mr Heffernan said the images were downloaded in clusters. There was no evidence that all the images were actually seen by the defendant, he added. He said gardaí had still to examine computer records further.
At a previous hearing, the court was told gardaí had visited the defendant's home as part of a nationwide investigation into child pornography known as Operation Amethyst. A laptop, PC, 68 CD Roms and 11 floppy discs were seized.
The court was told the child pornography images had been downloaded from the Internet site on seven occasions in 1999 but there was no question of the images being used for distribution purposes. The court was told the offence was the least serious under the Act, and the website images did not involve the children in sexual acts. Judge Ó Buachalla said he would adjourn the case to May 27th to allow for further Garda evidence.