West Cork mum struck sex attacker with hurley to protect her daughter

A West Cork woman who was being sexually attacked by an intruder at her home in the early hours feared what he would do to her teenage daughter so she struck him on the head with a hurley.

Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford said the victim was very brave. She said the daughter also showed strength and resilience by running out of her home to get help for her mother.

The judge said: “This was a most terrifying incident — terrifying in every possible respect. The mother had huge fears about what would happen to her daughter. And the daughter had huge fears about what would happen to her mother.”

The accused man told the probation service that he never intended any sexual assault. He said he accepted how frightening it would have been for the injured parties.

Marjorie Farrelly, prosecuting, said there was no issue in identifying Christopher Ryan, aged 33, of 38 Fernhill Woods, Clonakilty, Co Cork, as the defendant.

Ryan was on bail for a similar offence when he carried out this attack. He was jailed last summer for 10 years for that offence — a case that included a rape.

On Friday, Judge Lankford added six and a half years to that jail term. The total sentence was eight years, consecutive to what he was already serving, and with the last 18 months suspended.

Donal O’Sullivan, defending, said that other than the case mentioned, the accused had no previous convictions of any real relevance prior to November 2023.

He had a long-term relationship and was apologetic and remorseful. He had problems with drink and drugs.

Detective Garda Paul Cullen gave evidence of the attack on the woman and her daughter, who were falsely imprisoned at their home at around 5am on January 12, 2025.

The devastation for the 38-year-old and her daughter was outlined in victim impact reports. The woman said it had affected her every day to the point where she has “very little faith left in humanity, because you don’t know what anyone is capable of”. 

She said it had been aggravated by hearing “horrible, nasty rumours about victim-shaming” in her locality.

Her daughter, who is in her early teens and was the injured party referred to in other charges of assault causing harm and false imprisonment, said she found it so horrible to think about what happened on the night that. “I thought of taking my own life,” she said.

Detective Garda Cullen, of the West Cork Protective Services Unit, said the mother and daughter had watched television in a double bed and fallen asleep together after 11pm and were woken by the intruder at around 5am.

“When (the woman) opened her eyes, she saw a male in the room and she began to scream and kick her legs,” Det Gda Cullen said. 

“During the struggle, he digitally penetrated her vagina and anus, rubbing her vagina with his fingers and this lasted 20 to 30 seconds.

“She was fighting with him, looking for something to hit him with.

“She picked up a pint glass, but this was dropped to the floor. She was punched on the side of the head. She thought he was going to rape her daughter. He held his foot to the door, preventing (the daughter) from escaping,” said Det Garda Cullen.

The teenager got to the stairs and the mother followed, picking up a hurley in the room. The male was on the second step of the stairs. She gave him a blow to the top of the head with the hurley and he fell. She chased him from the house.

The teenager got to the safety of a neighbour’s house, saying over and over: “Somebody help my mam.”

HIDING IN BUSHES

When the mother emerged from the house, she was hysterical and looking for her daughter. Gardaí found the accused hiding in bushes and he was arrested.

Mr O’Sullivan said Ryan had pleaded guilty as early as he possibly could. He said the defendant lived a normal life to the age of 31, but that within a period of 14 months committed the offences at the centre of this case and an earlier rape in another part of the country, for which he is serving the 10 years. “He is very remorseful and he wants me to express his deep remorse. He understands how terrible his actions were.”

In her victim impact statement, the woman said: “I don’t feel safe anywhere. I am now terrified of the dark; not something I had ever experienced or understood before. I am terrified getting into my car in the dark, checking to see if there is a man following me or hiding in my car. I am scared all the time now.

“I am intimidated by men. I don’t feel comfortable in myself. I don’t trust anyone as I have very little faith left in humanity, because all I can think is, ‘You never really know what anybody is capable of’.

“I don’t even want to think about or share with anyone how I physically feel sick, dirty, and ashamed, violated, and want to puke when I think about what happened to me in front of my daughter.

“There is no amount of showering I can do to make myself feel clean again. I feel disgusted and don’t feel my body is my own, that a part of me has been taken and I don’t know if I will ever feel normal again after that. 

"Something has changed in me for ever and I feel so sad that this has happened. All I try to do is get through the days as best as I can and stay strong for (daughter).

“But the part that breaks me the most out of all this is that the safety a parent gives their child has been taken away from me. When I tell (her) things like, ‘Try not to worry; that would never happen’, she just replies, ‘You said no one would ever break into our house, and that happened’, so now I can’t even comfort my daughter and make her feel safe.

“I can’t give her the basic sense of protection she deserves from her mother. It is the worst feeling in the world.”

Her daughter said: “I can’t walk on my own in the dark without get a really hot feeling in my heart, like there’s something bad about to happen or has already happened. 

"I can’t close windows or doors when it’s dark outside, because of the fear someone’s waiting for me out there.

“Now I don’t feel safe in my own house — so I can’t have friends over and/or for sleepovers, I can’t sleep at my friend’s houses. When people say everything is going to be okay and nothing is ever going to happen, I automatically assume that what they’re saying is all lies, because something bad did happen. Something so unexpected that I don’t believe any promises that I’m safe anymore.

“What I have experienced has been so life-changing to the point that I have considered taking my own life, thinking that I would feel so horrible and that I was so scared I couldn’t live with the memories of that night.”