A man who used a hidden camera wrapped in a newspaper to spy on children in toilets at a busy shopping centre has appeared in court.
Gardai caught Kieran Griffin carrying out the lewd behaviour in the toilets of Letterkenny Shopping Centre in Co Donegal on July 8th, 2016.
The computer graduate was well-known in the area as he normally wore a kilt due to his Scottish heritage.
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Griffin, who was studying computer technology at Letterkenny Institute of Technology at the time, was found in possession of two phones, a memory card and a covert pen camera.
After Gardai caught him at the shopping centre, a search warrant was secured and officers raided his home at Cashel, Fanad as they continued their investigation.
They seized a number of items including a Sony laptop and other hard-drives as well as a five-page child pornographic story entitled ‘Swimland Beaver Patrol.’
All the items were sent for analysis to the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau in Dublin.
Garda Detective Stephen McGonagle outlined to the court the contents of the material found on Griffin’s computer.
He revealed how the covert camera pen had been placed in Griffin’s bathroom at the home he shared with his elderly mother.
The video recordings showed Griffin, who is in his 50s, setting up the camera and then it showed the secret footage of a young woman using the bathroom including scenes of her naked while showering.
Other material found on hard-drives on the laptop seized showed Griffin engaging semi-naked chatting in a sexually explicit manner to boys as young as 14-years-old.
Garda Detective McGonagle was asked by Judge John Aylmer if he knew where these victims lived or what country they were from.
Detective McGonagle said the young boys spoke broken English and he thought they were foreign nationals but that Interpol had not yet traced the victims.
