A shamed ex-prison officer who quit her job after being caught holding hands with a killer rapist is set to fight a dog fouling charge.

Ruth Ann Oliver is accused of permitting her schnauzer-type dog to foul in Belvoir Forest Park on the outskirts of south Belfast in April last year.

Oliver appeared briefly before Belfast Departmental Magistrates’ Court last week and told District Judge Ken Nixon she intended to contest the charge.

Judge Nixon adjourned the case until February 2.

In 2011, disgraced Oliver, of Clover Braes in Craigavon, was caught holding hands with sex killer Ken Callaghan in a Tesco supermarket.

Notorious Callaghan was out on day release at the time when a Sunday Life reporter spotted the pair together.

At the time Oliver was a night duty officer at the Prisoner Assessment Unit in north Belfast where Callaghan was being held.

Callaghan was jailed in 1987 after he broke into a woman’s house in east Belfast, battered her with a hammer and then raped her as she lay dying.

When Sunday Life revealed the pair were at the Tesco together, Oliver was suspended from the Northern Ireland Prison Service and she later resigned with a disciplinary hearing pending.

The Prison Assessment Unit where she worked was shut as a result and Callaghan was returned to jail.

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Sunday Life’s exposure of Oliver and Callaghan hand-in-hand earned Chief Reporter Ciaran Barnes Scoop of the Year and Print Journalist of the Year at the CIPR Northern Ireland Media Awards.

cwoodhouse@sundaylife.co.uk

sex killer: Ken Callaghan

Belfast Telegraph