William Mullan 42

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A “devious” sex offender who admitted downloading thousands of indecent images of children dumped his mobile phone into a lough in disgust at what he had done, the High Court heard on Wednesday.

William Mullan told police his addiction then drove him to access and store more photographs of babies and other youngsters on a second device.

The 42-year-old, of Old Rossorry Park in Enniskillen, used an alias to set up social media accounts in order to obtain the material online.

Details emerged as he was refused bail on charges of breaching a Sexual Offenders Prevention Order (SOPO) and possessing indecent images.

Prosecutors said police were alerted earlier this month that he had used Snapchat to post a Category A video of a child online in October last year.

Mullan had used an alias to register an account on the messaging platform.

A phone seized from the defendant was examined and found to contain 2,500 images of children ranging from babies to teenagers, the court heard.

By that stage, a 10-year SOPO had been imposed on him following a previous conviction for having indecent photos.

Crown counsel said Mullan freely admitted during interviews that he had purchased two mobiles without permission, with the intention to go online and feed his addiction to child pornography.

“He created an alias username to set up a Snapchat account and then engaged with children he believed to be aged between 15 and 17,” the barrister disclosed.

Referring to the undiscovered device, she added: “He said he threw that phone in the lough as he was disgusted with what was on it, [but] admitted it contained a lot of bad things, namely indecent images of children.”

Mullan then purchased the second mobile and used it to access the Telegram messaging app, again intent on accessing similar illegal material.

“He said he downloaded up to 2,000 images onto the app and then, after a period of time, he would delete them due to his disgust with himself,” the prosecutor submitted.

“He has done this at least five times.”

The court also heard Mullan changed the SIM card twice after being banned from the app for being involved with indecent images.

Opposing bail, she argued that he is a Category One registered sex offender who poses a high risk.

“He is saying that he has an active addiction,” counsel stressed.

Mullan’s barrister suggested he could be safely managed and should be released from custody due to anticipated delays in the case.

However, Lord Justice Horner refused bail, based on concerns about potential re-offending.

He told the defendant’s legal representatives: “He’s quite obviously devious and prepared to take steps to access images he should not be accessing.”