Northern Ireland's top judge - Derry man Declan Morgan - has issued a stark warning about the dangers to which children can be exposed by unsupervised access to the internet.
Sir Declan Morgan - the North’s Lord Chief Justice - was delivering judgment in a case involving a man who was corrupted by internet pornography at the age of 15.
The Attorney General believed the three-year probation order imposed on George McCar
tney, aged 21, who admitted 30 counts of making indecent photographs of children, was too lenient.
But three Appeal Court judges dismissed the application and refused to vary the sentence.
The court was told that McCartney, a student, of Benson Street, Lisburn, began downloading porn of children as young as three when he was 15. He carried on downloading until he was 20 by which time he had accumulated nearly 10,000 images and video clips.
The Lord Chief Justice, sitting with Lord Justices Girvan and Coghlin, said the special circumstance pleaded by McCartney’s counsel was that he was corrupted as a child and his offending was the product of that corruption.
“We consider that this case probably represents the outer boundary of the discretion available to a judge to select a rehabilitative disposal and accordingly are not persuaded that the sentence was unduly lenient,” he said.
He went on: “The internet has revolutionised the way in which we live. Although it is clear that there is much that is positive about the internet this case demonstrates the dangers to which children can be exposed as a result of which they may be corrupted or indeed in some cases exploited.
“The ease with which an adolescent boy could disable the safe search facility in this case is of great concern.
“The case illustrates graphically the dangers faced by adolescents with unsupervised access to the internet and the need for parents to be aware of the requirement for a high degree of supervision of the use of computer equipment.”
