Ms Ryan waived her right to anonymity so that McNulty (27) could be named.<\/p>\n
Speaking after the sentence hearing, Ms Ryan said, \u201cI want people to know what he did, because silence protects abusers, and I will not stay silent any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want everyone to understand that this can happen to young women like me, too. It can happen to anyone regardless of age, background or circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor anyone listening who is living in fear, please know that help is available. Please reach out. You can escape. You can survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Sarah](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IDTJI4KEZITBTDGPEPLAXF7R4E.JPG\")
Sarah Ryan said the criminal process was ‘extremely distressing’ for her and her family. Photograph: Collins Courts <\/p>\n
Ms Ryan said what happened to her was \u201cpure evil\u201d and that she suffered for years at the \u201chands of someone who was supposed to love me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet, despite everything, I am here. I am speaking out because I want to turn my pain into purpose. Society needs to stop standing by and protecting abusers.\u201d<\/p>\n
She thanked her family, friends, garda\u00ed and Women\u2019s Aid for their support. <\/p>\n
McNulty pleaded guilty to charges of rape and coercive control. These pleas were acceptable to the Director of Public Prosecutions on a full facts basis, the Central Criminal Court has heard.<\/p>\n
He has no previous convictions.<\/p>\n
Evidence was heard that he raped the injured party in March 2019. She told garda\u00ed it was extremely painful and that she told McNulty to stop, but he didn\u2019t. <\/p>\n
The court also heard that McNulty coercively controlled her. He was physically and verbally abusive and threatened her.<\/p>\n
In one incident, he told her, \u201cI own you. I\u2019m not joking, I own you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reading her victim impact statement at an earlier sentence hearing, Ms Ryan said she felt \u201cI was trapped in a nightmare from the very beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the beatings reached a point where she thought McNulty was going to kill her. She said she wished sometimes he would have killed her, as it would have meant an end to the suffering.<\/p>\n
She said she was afraid to tell anyone and that McNulty exerted such control over her life that \u201cit felt it wasn\u2019t mine any more.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she used to be bubbly and outgoing, but is now suffering from severe depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n
She said the criminal process was \u201cextremely distressing\u201d for her and her family, describing herself as a \u201cshell of a person\u201d.<\/p>\n
Imposing sentence, Mr Justice Tony Hunt noted that McNulty\u2019s offending took place in the context of an intimate and domestic relationship, which is an aggravating factor.<\/p>\n
He set a global headline sentence of 13 years, which he reduced to nine years to take account of the mitigation and McNulty\u2019s personal circumstances.<\/p>\n
The judge said he would suspend the final year of the sentence under strict conditions, and placed McNulty under the supervision of the Probation Services for two years post-release.<\/p>\n
An investigating garda gave evidence that McNulty and the injured party met in 2018 and quickly started a relationship.<\/p>\n
In March of that year, there was an argument between the couple, after which he headbutted her, knocking her on to the road.<\/p>\n
Later that year, he grabbed and punched her arm. In another incident, he grabbed and smashed her phone against the wall.<\/p>\n
McNulty would ring the injured party constantly to ask what she was doing. He also took her phone, checked messages and blocked men in a manner she saw as jealous and controlling.<\/p>\n
He also gave out to her for wearing make-up and berated her if she didn\u2019t. <\/p>\n
The relationship ended in March 2022, the court heard. <\/p>\n
The court was told that McNulty experienced suicidal ideation around the time that the relationship ended and was detained under the Mental Health Act for a period.<\/p>\n
He was later interviewed, but made no comment in relation to most questions.<\/p>\n
The investigating garda agreed with Michael Lynn SC, defending, that McNulty has complied with all bail conditions and has a young child with his new partner.<\/p>\n
It was accepted that substance abuse by McNulty was a feature of this case, and the guilty plea was of benefit to the prosecution.<\/p>\n
A letter of apology, testimonials and a probation report were provided to the court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI am here, I am speaking out because I want to turn my pain into purpose,\u201d a woman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[956,9,10,65264,13959,52,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-242212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-central-criminal-court","12":"tag-director-of-public-prosecutions","13":"tag-dublin","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-featured-news","16":"tag-featurednews","17":"tag-headlines","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-latest-news","21":"tag-latestnews","22":"tag-main-news","23":"tag-mainnews","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115750078203994793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}