THREE-TIME ALL-Ireland winning Limerick hurler Pat Ryan successfully appealed a jail sentence and conviction for perjury today, seven months after he had pleaded guilty to lying during criminal proceedings against him.

Despite admitting last March that he lied under oath before a court in October 2020, during a prosecution against him for alleged speeding, Ryan left Limerick Circuit Criminal Court today with neither a conviction or a sentence against him, after judge Tom O’Donnell allowed his appeal.

Ryan, (28), from Doon, Co Limerick, was appealing the severity of a two-week jail sentence imposed on him by judge Patricia Harney at Limerick District Court, last March.

At the time, Judge Harney told the former Limerick hurling star, he had told “a brazen lie”.

“You’re not getting away with it, the whole criminal justice system is based on truth given to the courts, you are facing very, very serious trouble,” Judge Harney told Ryan.

When Ryan was called to give evidence in the 2020 speeding case he falsely told the court that he did not receive a summons for the alleged speeding offence.

The perjury came to light later, when Gardai acting on a separate investigation, discovered a photograph of the speeding summons sent from Ryan’s mobile phone to the phone of an unidentified third party.

Text messages about the summons had also been exchanged between both phones, the court heard.

Ryan’s solicitor John Herbert argued at an earlier hearing of the appeal that Ryan had been ignorant of the law and courts and the serious consequences of convictions for offences such as “falsehoods, telling lies or deceit”.

Calling on the court for leniency, Herbert said that a jail sentence would have “life-changing” consequences for Ryan who, at the time of committing perjury was “an elite athlete in an elite team, a hurling team which we now know is one of the most successful hurling teams in the country”.

Detective Garda John Swan, attached to the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, had given evidence previously that a photograph of the original speeding summons sent to Ryan had been discovered by GNBCI officers during a separate investigation after a mobile phone belonging to an individual who was not identified in court was seized by Gardai.

Padraig Mawe, State Solicitor for Limerick City had previously told the court that it appeared from Garda analysis of Ryan’s mobile phone that he had been “looking for assistance” from a third party in relation to the summons.

Mawe told the court today that perjury was a “serious offence”, and he noted Ryan had come to court with “an unblemished record”.

At an earlier hearing of Ryan’s appeal last May, Judge Tom O’Donnell said perjury was an offence that “strikes at the very heart of the administration of justice”.

He said Limerick senior hurlers were “role models for the generation to come” and it had been “disappointing” that one of them was before the criminal courts.

Allowing Ryan’s appeal today, O’Donnell said what Ryan did was “very wrong, no doubt about it”.

However, he said that given the “highly unusual circumstances of the case” as well as the “enormous publicity” the case had already received in the media, he had “serious concerns that the impact of a conviction of this nature would be completely disproportionate”.

“The law is one thing, and justice is another,” Judge O’Donnell said.

The judge said he had not made a formal order for Ryan to participate in community service in lieu of a jail sentence, but noted that Ryan had “voluntarily engaged” with the probation services and completed 100 hours of community service “with impeccable aplomb”.

Ryan, wearing a grey cap, a dark navy jacket and slacks did not speak during today’s hearing.

Written by David Raleigh and posted on TheJournal.ie