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 discuss getting her son’s car back is “implausible, incredible and lacks logic”, prosecuting counsel Maurice Coffey SC told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in his closing address on Tuesday.
In his closing address, defence counsel Breffni Gordon BL told the jury that his client and the woman made a mistake that day, given they are both married, but “no crime was committed on that particular day”.
Garda 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 on September 29th, 2020.
The accused took the stand on Tuesday and said the woman showed him photographs of herself that he considered “quite raunchy”, cupped her buttocks, bent over and asked him if he liked what he saw before suggestively asking if he wanted a “hand” with anything. He said she also lifted her top and showed him her breast.
Garda Ryan told the court he made it clear to the woman that he was going upstairs to masturbate and she could leave or join him. He alleged the woman followed him upstairs and masturbated him in a shower room, while facing away from him at his direction because it was during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He told the court that what happened “was fully consensual” and agreed with counsel that the woman was behaving in a “sexually-charged fashion”. He said he was “hot under the collar” during the encounter.
It is the State’s case that Mr Ryan prevented the complainant from leaving the Garda station and sexually assaulted her three times. The woman said that prior to attending the station, she had a phone discussion with Garda Ryan who insisted she come in to sort out the issue around her son’s car and told her to “wear something tight”.
She told the court that Garda 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 Garda 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 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 asked. “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 woman was a “thoroughly credible witness” and that Garda Ryan’s version of events was “badly-written erotica rather than an account of something that happened that was consensual”.
In the defence’s closing address, Mr Gordon 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 gardaí and that they came to her a month after the alleged offence.
He said the woman left the Garda station and “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 said maybe she was afraid Garda Ryan would tell others about it and she decided to say something “before he found out about it”.
“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.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis