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A former school welfare officer and Army cadet leader has been found guilty of sexually assaulting teenage girls.

Neil Beckett, 43, with an address at Kilmore, near Crossgar in County Down, was told by the judge that from "this moment on, you are a registered sex offender".

Beckett was found guilty of 16 counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual grooming.

They span a period of eight years between 2015 and 2023.

Eleven teenagers had brought charges against Beckett.

Nine were Lagan College pupils and two were Army cadets.

Beckett was found not guilty of rape which was alleged to have taken place sometime between 2013 and 2015 while he was an Army cadet leader.

He was also found not guilty of sexual communication with a child and 10 further counts of sexual assault.

During the trial, which spanned five weeks, the court heard from Lagan College pupils and Army cadets who said that Beckett had hugged them, kissed them, touched their thighs under the girls' skirts and tickled them.

In doing so he had made them feel uncomfortable, the court was told.

The judge thanked the jury for their commitment over what he described as a long trial and said they had taken great care and attention with their duties.

Beckett will be sentenced on 6 December.

Description

The married father who was so obsessed with male genitalia he secretly recorded dozens of men and boys using toilets was handed a sentence of probation.

Tinsley was ordered to complete a two-and-a-half-year probation program with a warning that any breach would see him back in the dock. Tinsley, from the Lurgan Road in Dromore, Co Down, had earlier entered guilty pleas to 18 sex offences.

His offending was discovered when a 14-year-old boy urinating in the toilets of CastleCourt shopping centre on January 26 2019 spotted him holding a mobile phone over the cubicle wall.

Cops uncovered 160 other secretly recorded videos including 20 of other young boys and all of them bar one taken in toilets.

One video was taken in one of the two guest bedrooms at the Coach House B&B he owns with his wife and while it only showed a guest setting a bag on to the bed, the fact he bought and installed the covert camera "demonstrates an intention on the defendant’s part". 

He agreed to complete a 30-month probation order and was imposed a “necessary and proportionate SOPO order. 

Description

John Quigley,of Maybrook Mews, has a total of 32 previous convictions and 30 of those are for sex offences.

The 60-years-old, who is a former senior employee of the N. Ireland Housing Executive, admitted two charges of indecently assaulting a male between December 1973 and April 1975.

Quigley was 16-years-old at the time of the offences and the victim was 14.

Derry Crown Court heard the injured party disclosed the abuse to a counselling and support service before making a statement to police in 2015.

The victim met Quigley at the local Boy Scouts of Ireland, who was older and a leader in the group at that time.

Some months after the victim had joined the scouts, Quigley invited him to his house to complete some badge work.

He took the boy into a garage, told him to open his trousers and touched him in a sexual manner.

Quigley told the boy this was a secret and warned him not to tell anyone.

A couple of weeks later , Quigley and the boy went for a walk along the River Foyle and he suggested they stop and lie down on some grass.

Quigley opened the victim’s trousers and touched him in a sexual manner for around half an hour.

He was ‘reassuring the complainant that everything would be alright’ and afterwards warned him again not to tell anyone and that it was a secret.

After this incident the victim did not have any further involvement with Quigley as he became a cub leader and their meetings were held on a different night.

Quigley was interviewed by police about the allegations in 2015 and he denied them.

The defendant denied taking any younger boys under his wing and claimed that he could not remember the complainant.

Defence counsel, Martin Rodgers, QC., said his client ‘acknowledges the hurt and harm he caused to the injured party.’

He said Quigley had served two previous sentences of imprisonment for offences which were committed at around the same time and he now wants to ‘put all this offending totally behind him and move on.’

Suspending a 12 months sentence for two years, Judge Philip Babington said Quigley’s behaviour was ‘completely wrong and unacceptable’ and he had ‘blighted many people’s lives by his offending.’

Quigley will also be subject to the notification requirements of the Sex Offenders’ Register for a period of 10 years.