Locations
35 Dunbeag, Castlebar, Co Mayo
Description
Vile John Ring pinned the girl in a Galway shop corner by her neck and roughly groped her from behind.
THE predator brother of Minister Michael Ring has escaped prison time for molesting a schoolgirl.
John Ring, 49, belatedly admitted sexually assaulting the Transition Year student at his trial in December 2015.
His young victim had just turned 17 when he entered the north Co Galway shop where she was working in July, 2014, and called her to the back on the pretext of looking for booze.
There the vile beast pinned her in a corner by her neck and roughly groped her from behind.
Galway Circuit Criminal Court was told that the girl needed counselling after the attack and is now nervous of people, especially men, if they come too close. Ring was told at his first sentencing hearing in March 2016 that he faced a four-year stretch behind bars for the assault.
But it was made clear to the bread delivery man, from Castlebar, Co Mayo, that his engagement with counselling would determine how the sentence would be served.
Successive hearings over the next 20 months heard he was addressing his sexual deviancy.
And defence counsel Diarmuid Connolly asked for sentence to be finalised “in ease of everyone”, adding that the latest probation report had noted his client was “genuinely trying to change his behaviour”.
Judge Rory McCabe said a deterrent term would be appropriate — then sentenced Ring to four years in prison, which he suspended for five years on condition of good behaviour.