Police in Northern Ireland were tonight examining computers belonging to a top civil servant being held in the US on child sex charges.
Detectives went to the home and office of Mr Stan Mallon to study his computers - especially his use of the Internet. The 61-year-old is being held in Chicago after allegedly arranging to have sex with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old girl after repeatedly making contact with her in an Internet chat room. Mr Mallon, from west Belfast, is acting chief executive of the Ulster Scots Agency and was arrested in the US on his way to Washington to promote the agency at a time when senior politicians from both sides of the Irish border were in the city for the St Patrick's Day celebrations. He was detained outside the Amerisuites Hotel in Chicago while allegedly on his way to meet the girl. She was in fact an undercover police officer. Mr Mallon is being held in the Chicago Metropolitan Correction Centre and is due back in court next Monday charged with crossing a state boundary for the purposes of having sex with a 14 year old, said police in the city. Police in Belfast confirmed tonight they were examining Mr Mallon's computers after being contacted by the Chicago Police Department. A spokesman said they had offered to give all assistance requested by the US police investigators. Ulster Unionist peer Lord Laird of Artigarvan, chairman of the Ulster Scots Agency said tonight his organisation was also co-operating fully with the authorities. Lord Laird added: "I want to underline once again the position of the agency regarding this incident. Stan Mallon was not in Chicago on agency business. Mr Mallon once worked for the Northern Ireland Industrial Development Board, the province's main jobs creation agency, before being appointed to his current position last August. Last night Mr Mallon's family pledged to stand by him and said he would be strenuously denying all criminal activity and was actively pursuing a number of defences. PA