'Mooning' teen avoids jail term

Patrick Devine was being held in Senegal

A Queen's University student sent to an African prison for "mooning" at the home of a Senegalese governor has been given a suspended sentence.

Patrick Devine, 19, from Donegal, was also given a £200 fine.

His lawyer Moustapha Diop said his client deeply regretted his act. Devine spent almost four weeks in jail after his arrest on 27 July.

He was released on bail last Friday and travelled back to his family home in Dunfanaghy this week.

Devine had been working over the summer in the former French colony as a volunteer helping street children with the Teaching and Projects Abroad (TPA) organisation when he pulled the prank as a dare.

The student was spotted by a local man who restrained him until police arrived.

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After several days in police cells he was moved to La Maison de la Correction where he reportedly shared a cell with 40 other criminal suspects.

Irish diplomats based at the Irish embassy in Nigeria had been liaising with Devine, while Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern assured his mother Noreen that everything was being done to secure his release.

It is understood his mother, her brother and sister-in-law, travelled to Senegal where they have been visiting him in jail.

Meanwhile, messages of support have continued to appear on the student's Bebo internet site homepage.