Solicitor found not guilty of child porn charge
A solicitor accused of possessing child pornography has been found not guilty by direction of Judge Yvonne Murphy at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Mr Sean Foley, aged 38, of Percy Place, Dublin 2, had pleaded not guilty to knowingly having child pornography contained in temporary internet files on a computer hard drive at Merrion Row on May 27, 2002.
The direction to acquit came on day-10 of the trial following submissions from defence counsel Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC (with Mr Edward Leavy BL).
Judge Murphy found that there was insufficient evidence that Mr Foley was in knowing possession of images found in the temporary internet folder of his computer.
She said that he had made verbal admissions to gardaí that he had accessed a child pornography website a couple of years earlier and had since viewed similar images while browsing the internet but had not sought such images.
When shown images gardaí had forensically recovered from his computer hard drive, Mr Foley denied seeing them before and surmised that websites had "left a fingerprint" in the temporary internet folders.
Judge Murphy said that while there was evidence of child pornography on the computer, it had not been established that it was in a mode which was accessible to Mr Foley on the date on the indictment.
She said her judgement did not imply that there would have been sufficient evidence to convict if the date on the indictment had been widened.
