RTÉ Courts Reporter
The trial of a celebrity accused of engaging in sexual activity with a 16-year-old when he was 27 has heard that nine mobile phones were seized from his home after a garda investigation began.
The man, who is now in his 40s and cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of engaging in sexual acts with a child under the age of 17 at locations in Dublin on dates between August 2010 and December 2010.
On the third day of the trial, a detective sergeant told the court that in March 2021 she was made aware of certain allegations being made against the man and she obtained a warrant to search his home.
She told the jury that she was accompanied by four other gardaí when she called to his home.
The man was cautioned and made aware of the allegations, she said, and he was told they were searching for mobile phones.
The detective sergeant said the man told gardaí where the phones were and they spent about an hour-and-a-half at his home.
She said the man was also provided with support services when they left due to the nature of the charges.
A second garda gave evidence that he searched the premises and seized a total of nine mobile phones.
In the bedroom, he found a Huawei phone on a desk, another on the bed and two from a bedside locker.
An iPhone was found in another room and one in a walk-in wardrobe.
In another room, an iPhone was found on a desk, along with another that was broken and another iPhone was found on a windowsill.
The court heard that the phones were placed in evidence bags and shown to the defendant who gave gardaí the PIN numbers for them.
During cross-examination, he was asked if the defendant had told gardaí the locations of the phones in the house.
The garda replied that he had not told him where they were, but he was not suggesting the phones were hidden.
The garda also confirmed he had later taken a DNA sample from the defendant in May 2022.
The court also heard that four of the nine phones seized by gardai could not have data extracted and were sent for repair before being returned to gardaí. Of those four, data could be extracted from three.
An expert witness who carried out the repairs confirmed to Defence Counsel Morgan Shelley BL that the broken phones could not have been used without specialist repair.
He also confirmed that the phones were returned to gardaí by 4 January 2022.
Earlier, Mr Shelley had pointed out that some of the phone evidence had been disclosed to the defence as recently as this morning.
RTÉ Courts Reporter
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