Judge allows garda accused of false imprisonment and sexual assault to be named

A date in 2024 was set for the trial

William Ryan is charged with falsely imprisoning the woman and three counts of sexually assaulting her at Aughrim garda station on September 29, 2020. Photo: Collins Courts

A Circuit Court judge has lifted a gagging order imposed by a District Court judge to prevent the naming of a garda charged with false imprisonment and sexual assault.

William Ryan (35), who is stationed at Aughrim garda station in Co. Wicklow is charged with falsely imprisoning the woman and three counts of sexually assaulting her at Aughrim garda station on September 29, 2020.

The fifth charge is for engaging in offensive conduct of a sexual nature at another location in Leinster between August 23, 2019, and February 25 last year. At a hearing this morning a trial date was set for June 4, 2024.

Last October, on foot of an application by defence solicitor Martin Moran at Dublin District Court, Judge Treasa Kelly ordered that the man’s name or occupation were not to be published.

Lawyers for a number of news media organisations brought an application to have the order lifted but Judge Kelly refused to do this. She sent the case forward to Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for trial.

At the first Circuit Court appearance last week Tom Murphy BL, for the press organisations, said that there was no basis to restrict the identification of this defendant and that the defence had failed to put forward any grounds of substance to justify doing so. 

He said that the defendant's personal right to privacy was not a basis for restricting the constitutional right for justice to be done in public. He said that it was “very clear” from previous judgements that there were only two grounds for imposing reporting restrictions. 

He said the first was legislative provisions restricting publication and the second was where there is a real identifiable risk of an unfair trial arising from publication. He said there was no evidence that identifying this accused would impair his right to a fair trial. 

He said that the rights of the media have been, and continue to be, restricted since October. The court has heard that the reporting of the defendant's name will not give rise to the identification of the complainant, which would be the grounds for an anonymity order.

Ruling on gagging order

Judge Melanie Greally adjourned the matter for a ruling this week to allow time to consider the arguments submitted and the relevant case law. On Thursday morning, she said that the reporting restrictions were granted on the basis of the privacy rights of the defendant and the sensitive nature of the case.

She said that neither of these was a recognised basis for reporting restrictions. She said that there was no evidence that Mr Ryan's right to a fair trial would in any way be impeded by the publication of his name.

She ordered that the restrictions be lifted. After lawyers for Mr Ryan submitted that the media organisations should have appealed the district court order rather than applying to the circuit court, Judge Greally said that she “habitually” lifted orders made in the lower court.

The application was brought by RTÉ, Independent News and Media, the Irish Times and the Daily Mail Group.

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