McMonagle sentenced for series of child sex offences involving police decoys

A former Sinn Fein press officer has been sentenced to 18 months in prison with half to be served in custody for a series of child sex offences involving police decoys.

Michael McMonagle (43) of Limewood Street in Derry had pleaded guilty to 14 offences of sexual communication with a child and incitement of a child to engage in a sexual act on dates between June 2020 until August 2021.

The court was told that all of the offences involved police decoys and there had been no actual contact with any children just police officers acting as both young males and females.

Defence counsel Kieran Mallon KC slammed the press reports about the case stating there had been ‘a near total eclipse of the truth’.

He said in fact the defendant had never even talked to a child and there had been no attempt to meet up with children.

The barrister said that this ‘flies in the face of how it had been reported in the press’.

He described the defendant as ‘a victim of a media witch hunt’ and said the case had been ‘politicised’.

Passing sentence Judge Neil Rafferty KC said that across all the charges there were ‘in total six decoy/fictitious children ranging from 12 years to under 16 years.’

He said that reports McMonagle had said that ‘hearing the content of the messages disgusted him’.

The judge said that McMonagle had said he was ‘ashamed of his behaviour and deeply regretted the hurt and problems he had caused for other people’.

He said that due to his guilty plea McMonagle was entitled to a reduction in his sentence.

READ NEXT: Former Sinn Fein press officer Michael McMonagle (42) jailed for nine months at Derry Court

He was given a 18 month sentence with 9 months in custody and 9 on licence.

He also has to sign the Sex Offenders Register for a period of 7 years and had a Sexual Offences Prevention Order imposed for a period of 10 years.