The Federal Public Prosecutor has sought one year in prison for the former parliamentary assistant to Irish MEP Luke 'Ming' Flanagan (The Left) after he hacked Flanagan's X/Twitter account in September 2020.
Diarmuid Hayes (34) used a third-party app called 'TweetDeck' to post from his former boss' account on 28 September 2020 in an attempt to damage the latter's reputation. The pair had fallen out when Hayes discovered his contract would not be renewed following the European elections in 2019.
In the early hours, he posted the words "Sapirse McHugh skinny-dipping" [sic] with the intention of making it look like Flanagan was searching for naked images of former Irish Green Party MEP candidate Saoirse McHugh.
The accused said he had been smoking cannabis when he made the "impulsive decision" to post the Tweet as a "joke".
Public Prosecutor Thomas Deschamps said the act was clearly motivated by revenge and recommended a one-year prison sentence. Hayes will hear the court's final decision on 25 March.
'Cold and calculated'
For his part, Flanagan told the court the incident had put his family "through hell".
He believes Hayes' actions were a "cold, calculated and skillfully carried out attempt" to destroy him. He said the Tweet had been deliberately misspelt and posted late at night to give the impression Flanagan was drunkenly searching for photos of McHugh.
The MEP felt traumatised by the fallout of the Tweet and attended therapy when it garnered enormous media attention. He lamented the fact that Hayes did not immediately come forward, allowing for speculation about Flanagan's innocence to propagate.
"It's now quite clear who did this and my name has been cleared," he told Irish public broadcaster RTÉ. "If he had come out straight away, I would immediately have been cleared."
