A Co Armagh man who was arrested following an online sting involving decoy children was allegedly “teaching them how to masturbate,” a court has heard.
Paul Patrick Joseph McConville, with an address of Avondale Green in Lurgan, appeared at Armagh Magistrates’ Court, sitting in Newry, on Tuesday charged with attempted sexual communication with a child.
The public prosecutor told the court that police received a call on Sunday night from a group called Justice Reborn stating that they had detained McConville in Armagh and that he had allegedly been communicating with one of their decoys, who was pretending to be a 12-year-old girl.
The group were able to hand the police a folder of evidence showing chat logs, details of the alleged attempted sexual communication.
The material, the court heard, “shows the defendant speaking to whom he believes to be several 12 and 13-year-old girls, and some of these chats, he is alleged to be teaching them how to masturbate”.
The prosecutor added: “He claims that he’s done this before. While they were chatting, they confronted him, and the defendant’s explanation was that this was done on purpose because he is currently the subject of a reported file dating back to April 2025, in relation to similar allegations”.
McConville was arrested for the attempted sexual communication of a child and a search of his room resulted in four mobile phones being seized and further electronic devices were located.
Hidden in his wardrobe was a box for one of the mobile phones, and during that search, four empty SIM card packets were also seized.
The search also revealed numerous scraps of paper found containing the handwritten names of females along with numbers of what appeared to be social media handles, and these were all seized by police.
The prosecutor confirmed that McConville was on police bail in relation to matters back in April but that “it was withdrawn some months ago by way of report so there are no bail conditions and haven’t been for some time”.
District Judge Anne Marshall adjourned the case until January 27 for McConville to appear back at Armagh Magistrates’ Court.
He was remanded back into custody in the meantime as defence counsel made no application for bail.
