A YOUNG mother from Burnley who claimed she ‘accidentally’ took a picture of a crown court judge during a trial has been cleared of a contempt charge.

Kieley McKenzie, 24, had her Samsung Galaxy camera phone seized after she took a snap of Judge Graham Knowles QC, while her older sister was giving evidence during a Burnley Crown Court trial.

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She always accepted taking the picture - but insisted it had happened while she was trying to turn the device off, a court heard.

McKenzie, of Colbran Street, said she “panicked in the heat of the moment” when she noticed her father was trying to call her during the proceedings, and had pressed a number of buttons, in an attempt to disable the phone.

She denied a contempt of court offence and was cleared following a hearing before Judge Knowles at Burnley.

Dismissing the charge, Judge Knowles said he found it “possible for the camera to have been activated by accident” during the case.

The judge said he accepted that the phone was new to the defendant, acknowledging that it contained no contacts when it was later examined by police.

And while Judge Knowles said it may have been regarded as a contempt of court to have the phone on her person, in any event, this was not the charge which had been laid.

She told the court, at a previous hearing, she had been expecting a phone call from her aunt, as her son was ill.

Questioned by her counsel, Kate Hammond, about whether she had deliberately taken the picture, she said: “Definitely not.

“I wouldn’t do that. It’s not right.

“It is not something to be proud of.”

Her sister Nicole McKenzie, of Wharfedale Avenue, Reedley, had been giving evidence in an affray trial for a Barrowford man, Louis Lockett, who was later jailed for 16 months on conviction.

Nicole McKenzie and her mother, Ellen Byker, also of Wharfedale Avenue, were given seven-day jail sentences, after admitting to separate contempt charges, in relation to the same case.

They initially failed to turn up to give evidence.