By Isabel Hayes
A garda who falsely imprisoned and sexually assaulted a woman in a Co Wicklow garda station has been jailed for six years.
William Ryan (41) was convicted by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury last year of three counts of sexual assault and one count of false imprisonment of the woman at Aughrim Garda Station, Main Street, Aughrim, Co Wicklow on September 29, 2020.
He has been in custody since the guilty verdicts were handed down.
The victim in the case, who can’t be named to protect her anonymity, told the court that she felt “broken” and “degraded” during the trial process.
During the trial, Ryan took the stand and gave a false version of events that day – later described by the prosecution as “badly-written erotica”.
Defence counsel told the court today that Ryan now “unreservedly accepts his guilt in relation to all of the charges”.
He has since resigned from An Garda Siochana.
Breffni Gordon BL, defending, handed in 35 testimonials on behalf of Ryan, including from gardaí he said were precluded from coming to court to give evidence and one from a former superintendent.
Ryan has no previous convictions.
Sentencing Ryan to six years, Judge Elma Sheahan said: “Members of the public must be able to have trust and confidence in their gardaí.”
She said Ryan’s offending was “a breach of trust involving a member of An Garda Siochana and the community he was there to serve and certainly not abuse”.
The maximum sentence for sexual assault is 10 years and the maximum for false imprisonment is life.
Judge Sheahan set a headline sentence of eight years, which she reduced to six years taking mitigation into account, including Ryan’s prior good character, long work history and family situation.
She backdated the sentence to when Ryan went into custody last year.
The court heard 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.
The court heard that prior to attending the station, the woman had a phone discussion with Ryan who insisted she come to the garda station to sort out the matter.
The court heard he told her to “wear something tight” before hanging up.
At the station, Ryan sexually assaulted the woman twice by slapping her bottom and groping her breast.
He then “ushered” her upstairs, where he masturbated as she stood facing away from him and he sexually assaulted her again by digitally penetrating her vagina.
The court heard that before being taken upstairs, the woman showed Gda Ryan a photo of herself in her swimwear in an attempt to appease him.
Ryan gave evidence during the trial, claiming his encounter with the woman was consensual.
His evidence of a highly charged sexual encounter with the woman was described by prosecution counsel as like “badly-written erotica”, “implausible” and “incredible”.
In her victim impact statement which she read today, the woman said she “never felt so uncomfortable, so afraid” as she did during the trial process.
She said Ryan’s version of events was harmful and had damaged her efforts in the previous four years to build her life back.
“He has broken me twice,” she said of Ryan. “The first was when he sexually assaulted and imprisoned me.
“The other was when I came to court and had to go through a trial, with (my) pictures and his version of events.”
During the trial, some photos from the woman’s social media account were shown to the jury.
The woman said she found it difficult to explain what happened that day, saying she had always thought she was the kind of person who would “fight off” such an attack. “I was frozen,” she said.
“It was like my feet were stuck to the ground. It was like an out-of-body experience.” She said she was “terrified”.
The woman outlined how she spent the years since the attack “hiding away” in her house, afraid to go out and meet people in her community or be among crowds.
She said she suffered anxiety and had days where she did not want to be here.
She said it was “exhausting” putting on a brave face for her children.
“I felt such shame, even though I knew I had done nothing wrong,” she said, adding she suffered years of “fear, anger, torment, sadness”.
The woman said she had made her statement to take back her power and that she was now a survivor.
“He (Ryan) has lived in my head every day for four years and today he is being evicted,” she said.
Ryan’s wife, Anna Ryan, also took the stand today and started to read a statement outlining her empathy with the victim and the effects her husband’s incarceration has had on the family.
This was stopped by the judge, who noted such a practice was “unusual”.
She invited defence counsel to instead put questions to Mrs Ryan.
Mrs Ryan told the court that Ryan was a “calm, caring, unassuming, gentle, reliable, selfless family man”.
She said her children miss him greatly and the loss of his income has impacted the family.