Report on Judge Curtin's PC ready

An expert report on the computer of Judge Brian Curtin has been submitted to the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, and a copy …

An expert report on the computer of Judge Brian Curtin has been submitted to the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, and a copy is due to be forwarded to the judge's legal team in the coming weeks.

It has also emerged that the committee has been in contact with one of the US investigators who linked the credit card of Judge Curtin and thousands of other individuals throughout the world to a US website providing access to child pornography.

The committee is expected to invite the investigator, Michael Mead of the US Postal Inspection Service, to appear before its hearings into the Curtin affair in October.

The committee has been asked by the Oireachtas to compile a report on Judge Curtin and the allegations against him, in order to make a decision on whether he should be dismissed.

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Judge Curtin was arrested in May 2002 along with more than 100 other Irish individuals in separate Garda raids as part of Operation Amethyst. The arrests followed a tip-off from US authorities who provided names and credit card details discovered on the computer files of a Texas internet operation.

Judge Curtin was charged with possession of child pornography but was acquitted on direction of the court in 2004 as the search warrant in the case was out of date. He then brought unsuccessful High Court and Supreme Court challenges to the planned Oireachtas impeachment inquiry into him.

The hearings by the Oireachtas committee are not expected to get under way until mid-October.

As part of its work, it has commissioned a computer expert to make a copy of the contents of Judge Curtin's computer and prepare a detailed report. The expert has also been asked to examine other documentation such as notebooks and financial records, to see if they correlate with items on the computer.

None of the committee members have yet seen the report. They will examine it for the first time when they meet on September 12th. A copy is expected to be forwarded to Judge Curtin's legal team beforehand.

The committee will also decide on hearings at that stage, but is committed to giving Judge Curtin four weeks' notice. The hearings are expected to take place in private and expert witnesses will be called if necessary.

Mr Mead was one of the investigators in Operation Ore, which investigated the Texas-based Landslide Operations. The firm was providing internet access for customers to sites containing child pornography for a monthly fee payable by credit card.