McMonagle jailed for nine months for child sex offences

Former Sinn Féin press officer Michael McMonagle has been given an 18-month sentence for a series of child sex offences.

He will spend nine months in custody and the rest on supervised licence.

McMonagle will be placed on the sex offenders list for seven years and has also been disqualified from working with children and vulnerable adults.

He had pleaded guilty to two charges of attempted incitement of a child to engage in sexual activity and 12 counts of attempted sexual communication with a child.

The court was told McMonagle had communicated with what he believed to be six children, boys and girls aged 12 to 15, over a 15-month period.

He engaged in sexually explicit online conversations with all of them and sent explicit images of himself to some.

However he had in fact been communicating with three undercover police officers pretending to be children as part of an operation to catch online sexual offenders.

Sentencing him to 18 months, the judge said that while the childen were fictitious, it had been McMonagle's intention to cause harm.

Speaking outside court, PSNI Detective Chief Superintendent Lindsay Fisher said McMonagle was a "predator who was combing the internet for underage victims".

"Our child internet protection team work in online spaces so that we can catch paedophiles, hopefully before they traumatise and harm children in our communities," she added.

"It is by no means an easy job but a rewarding one when we are able to bring offenders like McMonagle before the courts as we have done so today.

"Let this serve as a warning, we are everywhere. If you are attempting to communicate with a child online in a sexual way, you will be caught and you will face the full force of the law when you are."

This case caused a political crisis for Sinn Féin when it emerged that two press officers provided references that enabled him to get a job with the British Heart Foundation charity, after the party had suspended him following his arrest and questioning by police about child sexual offences.

In a statement after his first court appearance, Sinn Féin said that as soon as it became aware of the arrest, he was "immediately suspended from employment and party membership".

A barrister for McMonagle told the court that his association with Sinn Féin resulted in the case becoming "heavily politicised", incluidng being mentioned by Taoiseach Simon Harris and Northern Ireland's First Minister Michelle O'Neill.

He claimed his client had been the victim of a "media witch hunt."

The police said McMonagle was a sexual predator who has been caught.