By Isabel Hayes
The version of events given by a garda accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a Co Wicklow garda station is like “badly-written erotica”, a jury has been told.
William Ryan’s assertion that he had a fully consensual sexual encounter with the woman who came to the station to discuss getting her son’s car back is “implausible, incredible and lacks logic,” prosecuting counsel Maurice Coffey SC told the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial in his closing address yesterday.
In his closing address to the jury, defence counsel, Breffni Gordon BL, told the jury that both the garda and the woman made a mistake that day given they are both married and that they “have to face up to that” but that “no crime was committed on that particular day”.
Gda Ryan (41) has pleaded not guilty to three counts of sexual assault and not guilty to one count of false imprisonment of the woman at Aughrim Garda Station, Main Street, Aughrim, Co Wicklow on September 29, 2020.
Gda Ryan took the stand yesterday and told the jury that the woman showed him photographs of herself that he considered “quite raunchy”, that she cupped her buttocks, bent over and asked him if he liked what he saw and made a sexually suggestive comment asking him if wanted a “hand” with anything.
He said she also lifted her top and showed him her breast.
Gda Ryan told the court he made it clear to the woman that he was going upstairs in the station to masturbate and she could leave or join him.
He alleged the woman then followed him upstairs and masturbated him in a shower room, while facing away from him at his direction because it was during the Covid pandemic.
He told the court: “It was fully consensual” and agreed with prosecution counsel that the woman was behaving in a “sexually-charged fashion”.
He said he was “hot under the collar” and “fully aroused” during the encounter.
It is the State’s case that Mr Ryan prevented the complainant from leaving Aughrim Garda Station and sexually assaulted her three times.
The woman had gone to the garda station for advice about retrieving her son’s car, which had been seized by gardai in Co Carlow the previous day.
She has told the court that prior to attending the station, she had a phone discussion with Gda Ryan who she insisted she come to the garda station to sort out the matter and told her to “wear something tight” before he hung up.
She told the court that at the station, Gda Ryan sexually assaulted her twice before “ushering” her upstairs, where he masturbated as she stood facing away from him and then sexually assaulted her again.
The court heard that she showed Gda Ryan a photo of herself on holidays in an attempt to satisfy him.
In his closing address to the jury, Mr Coffey said the trial had heard evidence that the woman had had only two hours of sleep the night before the alleged incident due to the issue with her son’s car, that she had been up since early in the morning, had a sinus infection and was feeling “lousy”.
“Is that someone who would be up for gratuitous sexual action a little after 10am in the morning in a garda station?” he said. “Is that credible?”
He noted that the court had heard evidence from the woman’s husband, whom she said she confided in that evening. “If it was consensual naughty sexual activity in a garda station as described, surely the last person she would be telling is her husband,” he said.
He said the jury had heard evidence from a specialist garda that no evidence of Snapchat was found on Gda Ryan’s phone and that if he had deleted the app, it would have left a trace.
He said the issue of the woman’s Snapchat photos was a “red herring” and perhaps “designed to embarrass her”.
He said the woman showing Gda Ryan a photo of herself “may be unusual, but it was understandable”, noting who knows what they would do in an attempt to get away from such a situation.
“Because it is unusual, it must have a ring of truth about it,” he said.
He said the woman was a “thoroughly credible witness” and that Gda Ryan’s version of events was “badly-written erotica rather than an account of something that happened that was consensual”.
He said Gda Ryan’s account was “self-serving, completely implausible” and mirrored the woman’s account in many ways, except when it came to consent.
He noted that Gda Ryan first told gardaí “nothing happened” when gardaí came to his house a month after the alleged offence.
He said it was a “terrifying event” for the woman, who had come to a garda station seeking assistance and he urged the jury to return guilty verdicts.
In his closing address, defence counsel said he would be urging the jury to bring back not guilty verdicts.
He said it was important to note that the woman did not go to gardai and that they came to her a month after the alleged offence.
He said that after the woman left the garda station on the day in question, “She got on with things as if nothing happened”.
“She was not the victim of this gratuitous attack as she described it,” he said.
In relation to the woman telling her husband, Mr Gordon noted one could not speculate on why she would tell her husband, but that maybe she was afraid Gda Ryan would tell others about it and so she decided to tell her husband “before he found out about it”.
In relation to the false imprisonment, defence counsel said there was nothing to prevent the woman from leaving the garda station at any time and that the lock on the door was designed to keep people out but did not prevent people from leaving.
He noted there was “no violence and no threat of violence”.
“No crime was committed on that particular day,” he said, urging the jury to acquit his client of all charges.
Judge Elma Sheahan told the jury she will deliver her charge on Thursday, when the trial is expected to resume.