A Donegal businessman will be sentenced later this month for the defilement of a teenage girl.
Ryan Kerrigan was found guilty of the offence by a jury at Donegal Circuit Court in December.
Kerrigan, a 31-year-old of Shannagh, Laghey, can now be identified after victim Delaney Leese waived her anonymity during a recent sentencing hearing at Letterkenny Circuit Court.
Kerrigan, who runs his own haulage company, is due to be sentenced by Judge John Aylmer at Cavan District Court.
At the time of the incident in December 2011, Kerrigan was 18 and Ms Leese was 15.
Ms Leese outlined to the court, in a victim impact statement which she read herself, how she has endured “13 long years of pain and suffering”.
Kerrigan pleaded not guilty to one count of defilement of a child under 17 years of age, an offence contrary to section 3 (1) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act, 2006.
However, after deliberating for just short of two-and-a-half hours, a jury of 10 men and two women found Kerrigan guilty by a 10-2 majority following a case that ran for three days before Judge Aylmer at Letterkenny courthouse.
At the trial, Ms Leese told Ms Fiona Crawford BL, prosecuting barrister, that she was in her Junior Certificate year at school and aged 15 at the time and was friendly with Kerrigan’s sister.
They were in Kerrigan’s home, getting ready to attend a teenage disco, on the evening of the incident.
She recalled being in the house with her friend while her friend’s brother and his friend, Kerrigan – who had turned 18 – were also present. She said the two males gave them two alcoholic drinks in wine glasses.
At one stage of the evening, she said Kerrigan came into a room and started kissing her. She said this “didn’t bother” her, but later, as they were exiting another room, having got more alcoholic drinks, she said Kerrigan “grabbed me by the arm” and pulled her towards a toilet and it was there where sexual intercourse occurred.
Details of the incident were outlined in court and Ms Leese told the court that she felt “fear and shock” having been “blindsided”.
She said she was told by Kerrigan before he exited the toilet not to tell a person who he was going out with at the time.
Kerrigan was represented by Mr Garnet Orange SC, with Mr Peter Nolan BL and instructed by solicitor Mr Rory O’Brien.
During the trial, Mr Orange suggested that Ms Leese had “led the way” and that she had “enthusiastically given” her consent. She told Mr Orange that it was “absolutely not” the case that she “put yourself in front” of the accused and “planned to get with him.”
“I told people that he forced me to have sex with him,” she said.
Kerrigan was working aboard when the probe began and was first interviewed by gardai in 2018. He told gardai that it was Ms Leese who suggested they go somewhere where their friends “wouldn’t be coming in and out of”.
He claimed that he was unsure of the exact age of his sisters at the time and denied the allegation put to him in the interview.
When asked about the allegation that he had shoved her to the ground and forced her to perform a sexual act, he replied: “I can’t understand this bullshit”.
Later, he told Gardai: “No. It’s all lies.” He said there was “full consent” to the sexual encounter.
Ms Crawford told the jury that it was her belief that the accused “never thought that that 15-year-old girl would come in front of you and be big enough, brave enough and bold enough to come in, stand in front of you and tell you what happened on that night in 2011.”
Investigating Garda Claire Ramsey told the court that there was a co-accused in the case and there was an application made for separate trials.
Ms Leese, now Meehan following her wedding to Aidan in 2022, in her victim impact statement, recalled how she started counselling with Jigsaw in 2013, but did not continue with a complaint as she thought the case may be heard while she was to sit her Leaving Certificate.
However, a letter from Tusla in 2017 reignited the matter: “I needed to continue with reporting what happened because I needed to know that I did everything I could to get justice for myself and to protect someone else from this happening to them”.
Ms Leese said she hoped that reading her statement aloud would “give me back the control and power that he took from me when he defiled me”.
She said: “Nothing can give me back everything I was and everything I had the potential to be. This is something that I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”
Ms Leese said she hoped her words “ring in his ears for the rest of his life”. She said: “I hope that he hears every word of this and sees me as a person because I feel like I wasn’t a person to him on the night of the 23rd of December 2011. I feel like I was just an object to him – something, instead of someone, that he could just use at his disposal.”
Kerrigan took to the witness box and told his victim that he is “genuinely sorry for all that has happened” and added: “I do hope in time that you can forgive me”.
However, Ms Leese said she was left feeling “like a rag doll” and that an apology now would be “too late”. She said: “Whether Ryan wants to admit it or not, or even acknowledge it or not, he defiled me. If he wanted people to think better of him, he should have been better”.
She told the court that the incident has had a profound impact on her – mentally, emotionally and physically – and affects her financially and in daily life.
“When my anxiety is at its worst, I wash my hands anywhere up to and in excess of 150-200 times a day, which results in them being red raw and cut,” she said. Anxiety, OCD and PTSD have left her having trouble sleeping, but also trouble staying awake: “My brain always seems to be in a constant battle with itself.”
Ms Leese outlined how she has self-harmed, but stressed that she is not suicidal and has “every intention of living”.
She said she wants to use her honeymoon with her husband to “leave all of this behind us” and told how 10 adjournments in five years left her with a feeling that she was the one being punished.
“It wasn’t just a short incident that was a moment in time, it’s a life sentence,” Ms Leese said.
The court was informed that Kerrigan has 17 previous convictions, which are all for road traffic matters and date back to 2012.
At a sentencing hearing, Mr Orange contested that the defendant and victim were “in the same age group, albeit at the outer reaches of the age group” at the time of the offence.
“He was older, but nevertheless was a young man,” he said. “The mere fact that he turned 18 does not say that you become a mature, responsible adult.”
While Mr Orange said this was very much a situation where there was no coercion or force used “and there doesn’t seem to be any deal of persuasion engaged in by him at any stage,” Judge Aylmer interjected and said that the victim’s account was one where there was not an absence of coercion or force.
Mr Orange said the case was always fought on the basis that sexual intercourse occurred, but it was the circumstances that were disputed.
He asked the court to accept that Kerrigan cooperated with the investigation and said that Kerrigan’s 17 previous convictions are effectively historic and related to road traffic matters.
The barrister implored Judge Aylmer to consider that Kerrigan was not prosecuted for a more serious offence: “It must be taken on board.”
Mr Orange asked the court to consider this as a “once-off offence by an 18-year-old 13 years ago” and said Kerrigan has been “an exemplary citizen since”.
Judge Aylmer will deliver judgement at a sitting of Cavan Circuit Court later this month.
Tags: