BY OLIVIA KELLEHER

A MUM struck an intruder who sexually assaulted her with a hurley to prevent him from attacking her daughter, a court heard.

Christopher Ryan (34), with an address at Fernhill in Clonakilty, was on bail in relation to a rape charge when the offence occurred at a house in Co Cork in January 2025.

He was last week jailed for six-and-a-half years for breaking into the house and sexually and physically assaulting the older woman.

Ryan pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault of the woman, physical assault causing harm to her and her daughter, false imprisonment of them both and burglary at the property.

Det Garda Paul Cullen previously told the court that a neighbour raised the alarm shortly before 5am on January 12th, 2025 when she heard the young girl shouting for help. The teen told her there was a man in their home hitting her mother. She said that they were both asleep when ‘a man came in and started beating’ them.

The older woman told gardaí she had woken up to the sound of their barking dog. She ‘kicked out’ but the man overpowered her and sexually assaulted her.

Ryan repeatedly punched the older woman in the face. She told gardaí that she felt that the intruder was trying to knock her out.

When he ran after her daughter the woman grabbed a hurley and hit him on the head and he fell.

A neighbour who spotted the intruder hiding in a green area led gardaí to him when they arrived at the scene. Christopher Ryan was arrested and charged.

In a victim impact statement the older woman said that she was constantly trying to ‘block out’ the flashbacks she suffered from the incident.

“I don’t feel safe anywhere – I am now terrified of the dark… I am terrified of getting into my car in the dark, checking to see if there is a man following me – I am scared all the time now.’

She added: ‘I don’t even want to think about or share with anyone how I physically feel sick, dirty and ashamed, violated and I 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.’

Her daughter said in her victim impact statement that she is afraid to go anywhere on her own arising out of the incident.

Defence counsel Donal O’Sullivan said that his client was apologetic and remorseful for his actions.

Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford said that the victims in the case ‘had behaved very bravely’ on the night of the offence, adding: ‘They should be proud of what they did for each other.’

Ms Justice Lankford noted that Mr Ryan was without previous convictions until the rape offence in 2023. In July of last year Mr Ryan was jailed for ten and a half years after he pleaded guilty to rape, sexual assault, assault causing harm and damage to a window at the home of a woman in Galway in 2023.

Ms Justice Lankford jailed Mr Ryan for eight years but agreed to suspend the final 18 months to allow him to remain under the supervision of the Irish Probation and Welfare Service for a period of four years. The sentence will run consecutively to the sentence Mr Ryan is already serving for rape.

Mr Ryan has already been included on the Sex Offenders Register.