Child porn trial hears what was allegedly found on Garda's seized laptop

The trial of a garda accused of possession of child pornography has heard that images and movies showing children subjected to sexual acts were allegedly found on a laptop seized from his home.

Joseph O'Connor (aged 58), from west Dublin, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to five counts of possession of child pornography at his home in 2011.

The trial began last week but has been in legal argument for much of that time.

The jury has previously heard that during a search of the defendant's home on August 2, 2011, gardaí seized a Dell laptop.

This morning Garda Janette Walsh told Alice Fawsitt SC, prosecuting, that she carried out an analysis of the laptop's hard drive using specialised software.

She said that files alleged to be child pornography images were found at various locations on the hard drive of the laptop.

She said that she found 92 images of child explicit sex, depicting a child under 17 being subjected to sexual acts.

She said that there were another 136 images of child exposure. She said these are images of children under the age of 17 where their genital area is exposed.

She said two of these images were located in a folder labelled “Spanked Boys” and that the other files were just copies of these images.

She said that there were 85 movie files showing children under the age of 17 engaged in sexual acts with other males.

There were 43 movie files found in the recycle bin folder of the laptop and 15 of these were deemed to be young boys being subjected to a sexual act, the witness said.

Gda Walsh said that a search of the laptop's internet history showed a number of adult pornography sites were visited and that these had references to images and videos of teenage boys.

She said she found pictures of the accused and a photograph of his garda ID card on the laptop as well as a Skype account under the name JP1Dub with the full name as Joe.

She said the profile image on that account was the defendant.

The trial continues before Judge Elma Sheahan.