By Paul Murphy
A 44-year-old man with a Drogheda address has been sent to prison after being convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl almost four years ago.
Patrick Byrne of Grange Rath, Drogheda, a member of the Defence Forces, appeared at Trim Circuit Court, where he was convicted of three counts of sexual assault on a minor. The court was told that the 14-year-old girl was staying at a friend’s house on 3rd September 2022 when the assault took place. She and her friend were sleeping in the same bedroom. She woke to find Byrne sexually assaulting her.
When she turned around in the bed accused ran out of the room but he re-entered twice more that night feeling her under her clothes and rubbing her head. The victim reported the incidents to her friend’s mother who screamed at the accused who then left the house. The victim said she and her friend slept on the couch that night.
The court heard that the injured party was scared and overwhelmed and did not process it for months. However, she told her sister about it in October 2023 and then reported it to the Gardai. The accused was interviewed and made no comment before giving his version of events. Defending barrister Barry White told Judge John Martin that his client had grown up in a family with alcohol
problems, which undermined his confidence. He had given service to his country, but his Army life was now at an end because of this conviction. The judge sentenced the accused to four years imprisonment with an additional year suspended, and he will be placed on the sex offenders register. The injured party Ella Hewson, who is now 18, waived her anonymity after the case, saying that she just wanted everyone to know what happened. She said she had lost friends because people believed she was making the allegations up. Since the age of 14, she had not been living, just existing, she said. She thanked everyone for their help “through this very hard and long time”.
“No one believed this could have happened, and to be honest, I didn’t believe this could have happened”, she said. The reason she had spoken up was because others were in danger of having the same thing happened to them.
