Woman charged with harassing and stealing from North Down MP Alex Easton

Appearing in the dock of Newtownards Magistrates Court 47-year-old Clare Cannon confirmed her identity and that she understood the three charges against her including theft, harassment and unauthorised computer access.

The charges allege that Cannon, from the Kylestone Road in Bangor, stole “documentation” belonging to Mr Easton on 7 February, that she “pursued a course of conduct which amounted to harassment” of the MP on 7 January and further that on 11 January, she “caused a computer to perform a function with intent to secure access to a program or data held in a computer or to enable any such access to be secured, the access you intended to secure or to enable to be secured being unauthorised.”

None of the alleged facts giving rise to the charges were opened in court but a police officer gave evidence that he believed he could connect Cannon to each of the charges.

While defence counsel Conor Holmes confirmed he “takes no issue” with the connection, a PPS lawyer told the court the prosecution intended to apply for a reporting restriction in favour of Mr Easton.

Before the lawyer could expand on his reasons to depart from the principle of open justice, District Judge Mark Hamill declared that he was not “going to gag the press…I do not have the authority to do it or the power to do it so I’m not making any order.”

Freeing Cannon on £400 bail and adjourning the case to 7 May, the judge barred the defendant from contacting any prosecution witness.