Walker unable to do work and gets probation

Walker unable to do work and gets probation

1 May 2024

FORMER DUP councillor William Walker, who was convicted of child sex offences, is unable to complete his community service, Downpatrick Crown Court heard last week.

Walker was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and three years of probation last year on two counts of attempted sexual communication with a child.

At the Crown Court on Friday an agreed application between the prosecution, defence and probation that the community service order be revoked and replaced with a two-year probation order was accepted by Judge Geoffrey Miller.

Although he agreed to the amendment, Judge Miller said Walker’s willingness to undertake community service had influenced his decision not to impose a custodial term when he sentenced him last June.

Walker (62), is formerly from Killyleagh, but now lives at an address in Bristol.

He posed as a 24 year-old man when he contacted what he thought were two teenage girls and asked them to send pictures dressed in their school uniforms.

The girls were, in fact, members of a paedophile hunters group acting as decoys.

In his sentencing remarks last June, Judge Miller said Walker’s claim that he had no sexual interest in children had to be “viewed with scepticism”.

The judge added: “There can be little doubt that the defendant was motivated by perverse sexual desires in engaging in what was deliberate sexual grooming.”