Court to extend Mallon sentence

Court ruled Mallon's original sentence was too lenient

A former senior Northern Ireland civil servant who arranged to meet a teenage girl for sex in the US should have his sentence increased, an appeal court has ruled.

Judges in Chicago agreed with the prosecution's appeal that the 21 month sentence imposed on Stan Mallon in March was too lenient.

Mallon had been due for release last Wednesday but the case has now been sent back to the trial judge with an instruction that his sentence should be increased.

Prosecutors had been appealing for his sentence to be increased by between 41 and 51 months, but details of the recommended jail term will not be made public until the court's decision is published.

The father-of-five, from Crumlin in County Antrim, had admitted using an internet chatline to contact a 14-year-old girl who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

At the original trial, he escaped the maximum sentence of more than four years in prison after the judge ruled that he was suffering a "diminished capacity".

Mallon, who is in his 60s, was acting chief executive of the Ulster Scots Agency until his arrest in March 2002 in Chicago.

The incident happened when Mallon was on a stopover in Chicago on his way to a White House reception.

His American lawyers had said his continued incarceration - when he has completed his sentence - was magnifying and continuing his hardship.

They said his continued imprisonment in America was doing him "irreparable medical and psychiatric harm".