Mark Mulligan loses appeal over child pornography production conviction

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The Court of Appeal dismissed Mark Mulligan's appeal against his conviction for producing child pornography on 18 February 2016. Mr. Justice Mahon delivered the judgment. The proceedings were reported on 18 February 2016.

Mulligan was convicted on 16 October 2014 after a two-day trial at the Circuit Criminal Court in Dublin under section 5(1)(a) of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998. The charge concerned knowingly producing child pornography at Station Way, Clongriffin, Dublin 13, between 9 and 17 March 2013.

On 20 November 2014, he received four years and six months' imprisonment, running from 7 July 2013, with the final 12 months suspended on conditions. He was also sentenced for other offences that day. He had earlier pleaded guilty to those offences.

Gardaí obtained a warrant for his Clongriffin home on 5 July 2013 and seized a computer and storage device during a search on 7 July 2013. The conviction appeal concerned Skype text conversations automatically recorded and stored by SkypeAlyzer.

The judgment described discussions of rape, sexual assault and torture of children. His defence described the exchanges as fantasy conversations, without images of children or any suggestion that a particular child had actually been abused. The judgment recorded no evidence that anyone except investigating gardaí had retrieved or reproduced the stored exchanges.

Mulligan maintained that he did not know the conversations were being stored or could be produced as documents; the respondent did not dispute that account. The court nevertheless held that the material could constitute child pornography and that lack of awareness of its automatic storage in downloadable form did not provide a defence.

The court also upheld the warrant and admission of the evidence, and rejected the challenge to the jury directions. Mulligan had separately appealed the severity of sentence on all three counts; this judgment decided only the conviction appeal.