A jury has convicted a garda after he was found in possession of child pornography

A garda has been found guilty of possession of child pornography.

58-year-old garda, Joseph O'Connor pleaded not guilty to the charges of five counts of possession of child pornography. A search of his home in August 2011 uncovered several files on the garda's computer containing illicit material of underage teenagers and young children. Some of the material featured children under the age of ten. According to Independent.ie the jury deliberated for 'a little over two hours'  before the jury of 'ten men and two women returned unanimous verdicts' of guilty on four of the five counts against him. He was acquitted of one of the five counts 'which dealt with 56 duplicates of two images'. Mr O'Connor is said to have denied prior knowledge of any of the materials found at his home and went so far as to say that someone else must have downloaded them. The suspended garda said that he had several men come to his home for sexual acts and that any one of them could have added the files to his computer during their visits. Nevertheless Mr O'Connor was still found guilty of the charges and has been remanded by Judge Elma Sheahan on continuing bail until next Monday, November 12.