Derry Court hears of "sting operation" of man accused of sexual communication and masked men claim

Derry Magistrate's Court heard today that there were claims three masked and armed men turned up outside the house of a man who appeared in court today charged with attempted sexual communication with a child under 16.

Gary Higgins (42) of Leafair Park in Derry appeared charged with attempted sexual communication with a child on January 14 this year and a second similar charges that was said to have occurred on June 18.

A police officer connected the accused to the charges and opposed bail. 

The court was told that the defendant was allegedly attempting to contact someone he believed to be a child but was in fact a police officer. 

District Judge Ted Magill described it 'as a sting operation'.

The court was told that there was a total of 44 devices that had to be examined as part of the investigation. 

The officer said that there were reports that on occasion Higgins had used a neighbour's WiFi to attempt to communicate with a child.

Defence solicitor Seamus Quigley said that the defendant had been on police bail to a different address since being first arrested but had since returned to his own address. 

He asked the court to prohibit the address being published and the police officer said that the information was already in the public domain. 

He said the defendant had claimed that on September 23 after his arrest three armed and masked men had appeared outside his house.

Mr Quigley said that the case could take some time to be dealt with.

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Judge Magill said these were serious offences and it would definitely take some time to deal with this.

He granted Higgins bail to an address approved by the PSNI, on condition he has no internet enabled devices and no unsupervised contact with any child under 18.

He will appear again on October 23.