Costs refused in child porn acquittal case

A former solicitor at the Chief State Solicitor’s office who was acquitted of possessing child porn has been refused his costs by Judge Yvonne Murphy at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Mr Sean Foley (aged 38), of Percy Place, Dublin 2, was found not guilty on December 20, 2004 by direction of Judge Murphy of knowingly having child pornography contained in temporary internet files on a computer hard drive at Merrion Row on May 27, 2002.

Judge Murphy said: "The question of costs is a matter for the discretion of the trial judge. Having carefully reviewed the evidence I am satisfied that it would not be appropriate to award costs."

Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, defending, earlier told Judge Murphy that her direction to acquit indicated that no prima face case had been established by the State. He said she should exercise her discretion to award costs including expenses of expert defence witnesses.

Mr Vaughan Buckley cited the State’s failure to find viruses on Mr Foley’s computer which were discovered by defence experts. He said the prosecution had relied on the contents of temporary internet files which he said had been shown in similar cases to store images without the knowledge of the computer user.

Counsel argued that Mr Foley’s case had been adjourned from May 2004 to December 2004 to allow the State to carry out further investigations. The evidence adduced from that investigation was brought to the notice of the defence only the day before the December trial commenced.

Ms Mary Ellen Ring SC (with Ms Una Ni Raifeartaigh BL), for the State, said Mr Foley made admissions to gardaí that he had accessed child pornography on the internet and accepted responsibility for everything on his computer.

Ms Ring said the court had been asked to consider whether Mr Foley had been in knowing possession of pornographic images of children and the State had been correct to bring a prosecution against him.

Judge Murphy had ruled on day 10 of the trial that there was insufficient evidence that Mr Foley was in "knowing possession" of images found in the temporary internet folder of his computer.