Man had prison officer home snaps

A 35-year-old Strabane man who admitted having images of a prison officer's house has been given a 21-month jail sentence, suspended for three years.

Belfast Crown Court heard police seized Brendan Martin Edward Brady's camera in 2003 as he took pictures of police outside his Delaney Crescent home.

Seven photographs of Prison Officers' Association Chairman Finlay Spratt's home were found on the digital camera.

Brady admitted one charge of having information of use to terrorists.

After Brady's arrest in September 2003 police found seven images of Mr Spratt's house when the camera's memory card was forensically examined using "sophisticated software".

Prosecuting QC Gordon Kerr told judge Mr Justice Higgins that according to the date shown on the camera, the pictures had last been accessed the previous April.

He said while they were still recorded on the memory card, they had been deleted from the camera's own memory and so "could not have been accessed at the time of seizure".

Brady was arrested and during police questioning, "gave different accounts to the police" including claims that he had found the camera on the road or that someone had left it in his taxi.

He later pleaded guilty to a single charge of possessing information likely to be of use to terrorists.

Defence QC Barry McDonald said there was no suggestion that the photographs were "used for any purpose" and that having served 17 months on remand, Brady "has already served a very heavy penalty for involvement in this matter".

Mr Justice Higgins told Brady he was suspending the jail term for three years because he had already spent more than a year in custody on remand and "in view of the... nature of the information and in particular, the circumstances in which it was found".