Architect jailed over child porn

Architect jailed over child porn


A County Down architect has been jailed for two years after being convicted of 50 counts of making indecent images of children.
Downpatrick Crown Court heard that Ian Patrick Magill, 59, of Ballyhornan Road, Downpatrick, had 15,000 indecent images on his computer.

Police said the images found during a search in July 2006 were some of the worst they ever had to deal with.

They also found large quantities of pictures of children and 29 film clips.

Magill told police that in 2002 he had visited Thailand and paid a Thai woman to take photographs of her four children with his own camera.

Prosecution counsel told the court that the pictures contained images of infants being sexually abused.

Magill has two previous convictions of making indecent images of children and for importing paedophilic videos.


He also distributed links to other paedophiles in internet chatrooms.

Following this, Magill lost his post as head of design at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra.


His defence barrister said Magill was sent to boarding school at the age of 12 and saw his parents only three times a year.

The barrister said "the emotional effects of this had tragic and life-long consequences".

Magill was also ordered to spend two years on probation and placed on the sex offenders' register for life.

Speaking outside the court, Detective Sergeant Peter Montgomery said: "The sentence sends out an important message to those who use images of child sexual abuse for their own gratification."