EncroChat in Northern Ireland: Dunford denied technical disclosure before later prison sentence
Mark Dunford received ten years and six months in an EncroChat case on 11 September 2026, following guilty pleas in November 2025. Earlier, on 6 September 2024, the judge had rejected his request for additional technical material.
In The King v Dunford and Others, [2024] NICC 24, the defence sought technical information, specifications, the software used and TLS certificates. Experts wanted to reproduce the collection process and examine whether messages were intercepted during transmission or recovered from memory. The application relied on section 8 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act.
Judge Neil Rafferty applied the statutory disclosure test: material must reasonably be capable of undermining the prosecution or assisting the defence. A better understanding of the technology alone was insufficient. Prosecutors stated that the requested material had been reviewed again and did not meet that test. The judge refused the application, expressly distinguishing disclosure from a hearing on admissibility.
Northern Ireland police said Dunford and co-defendant Philip Shackels admitted various drug and money-laundering offences in November 2025. Craigavon Crown Court sentenced both on 11 September 2026 to ten years and six months, half in custody and half on licence. They had been arrested in July 2020 after searches in Coleraine, Ballymoney and Newtownabbey. Police linked the messages to an international drug network.









































