Former DUP councillor disqualified after child sex offences

Former councillor William Walker

A former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) councillor has been disqualified from serving in local government for five years by a standards watchdog after being convicted of child sex offences.

William Walker was sentenced in June 2023 after admitting two charges of attempted sexual communication with a child.

Posing online as a younger man, he had asked two "children" to send him pictures in their school uniforms.

But he had actually contacted members of a so-called paedophile hunter group acting as decoys, a court heard.

The 61-year-old was a DUP councillor on Newry, Mourne and Down District Council when the offences happened in 2022.

Northern Ireland's local government standards commissioner found Walker had breached the councillors' code of conduct.

At a hearing on Friday, Margaret Kelly said Walker had brought his council and his position as a councillor into disrepute, and was not fit for public office.

She disqualified him from holding the position of councillor for five years - the maximum sanction available to the commissioner.

When interviewed by the watchdog, Walker acknowledged he had let down himself and his colleagues.

Walker, who is originally from Killyleagh in County Down, was suspended by the DUP following his arrest in March 2022 and later resigned from the council and moved to Blackpool.

He was sentenced in court last year to 100 hours of community service and three years' probation.

He was made the subject of a five-year sexual offences prevention order and will also be on the sex offenders' register for the same period.