Michael McDonald Agu jailed for child pornography possession

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

Michael McDonald Agu was jailed for 18 months for possessing child pornography. He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two charges of knowingly possessing child pornography on 31 October 2018. The proceedings were reported on 14 October 2019.

Gardaí confiscated McDonald Agu’s phone while questioning him about drugs seized at his home in October 2018. A video sent to him through a WhatsApp group was found on the phone. Detective Garda Alan Barry said the defence sought a hearing to challenge the case; a second video was discovered when the phone was re-examined in preparation. McDonald Agu withdrew his application to challenge the evidence.

Judge Martin Nolan said there was no evidence McDonald Agu had requested the videos. Defence counsel Seamus Clarke SC acknowledged that his client had remained in the group after receiving such a video, although he could have left. Clarke said the videos were not easily accessed and that the phone had been technically examined to retrieve them. He said it was impossible to determine how long a video had been watched.

Judge Nolan said he had to infer that McDonald Agu opened the videos, but how much he watched could not be determined. He ordered the 18-month sentence to begin on 14 October 2019 rather than run consecutively to the four-year sentence McDonald Agu was already serving for the drugs found during the search.