A horse riding coach in his 60s who abused his position of trust by raping a 14-year-old girl, having groomed her by giving her alcohol and equestrian clothing, has been jailed for nine years.<\/p>\n
The Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork heard that the now young woman had waited six years for William Connolly of Greenlands, Rathcoursey, Midleton, Co Cork to go on trial for his four-month abuse of her in 2019.<\/p>\n
He was found guilty by unanimous verdict of three counts of rape, one count of oral rape, two counts of sexual assault and one count of exploitation of a child for sexual activity in December of last year.<\/p>\n
At a sentencing hearing in Cork, Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford said that what had occurred between Mr Connolly and the then teenager had represented a \u201cgross breach of trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Justice Lankford said that Connolly had exploited the love the victim had for horse riding and relied on her passion for the sport to ensure she would comply with him.<\/p>\n
She described the victim in the case as a \u201cvery resilient young woman\u201d whom she stressed had delivered a \u201cvery clear, restrained victim impact statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe (the victim) said she accepted the type of situation she was in. He(Connolly) was her coach. She was a young woman who was very enamoured with horse riding.<\/p>\n
“He exploited her love of horses and relied on her passion for horse riding. He clearly took advantage of her love of horse riding and her desire to do well in competitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Justice Lankford spoke of the \u201chuge disparity in age\u201d between Connolly and the young woman he sexually assaulted and raped.<\/p>\n
She said that Connolly was in a position of authority at the time of the offences. In mitigation, she noted the previous good character of Connolly, his serious medical difficulties, and the fact that he had been described as a \u201cgood father\u201d by his loved ones.<\/p>\n
Mr Connolly still denies all wrongdoing. During the trial, he described the account of the victim as \u201cfantasies\u201d and \u201cinsane.\u201d<\/p>\n
The evidence was that the incidents occurred between August and December 2019 in several locations in Co Cork.<\/p>\n
The offences came to light when the mother of the then young girl found two texts on her daughter’s phone from Connolly.<\/p>\n
They read: “If you are my baby, you get everything. Only one catch. I want to own that (vagina) of yours. Agree, and you get everything.”<\/p>\n
Another read: “I want to poke – that is the deal.”<\/p>\n
\u201cHe groomed me and sexually assaulted me for a long time. I never saw it like that. I accepted that it was just the situation I was in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The young woman said that the matter was reported after she told a friend what had occurred. She said she was very grateful for her having such a good friend who opted not to listen to her when she asked her to keep it a secret.<\/p>\n
“I honestly don\u2019t know if I would have ever come forward if this hadn\u2019t happened.<\/p>\n
“I genuinely believed that Bill was a good man, and he did not deserve what would happen to him if the news ever came out. I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for telling his secret.<\/p>\n
I believed there was no harm being done if the only harm being done was to me. I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt that I had told his secret.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman said that she had felt sympathy for Connolly up until the first day of the trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt sorry that I was putting him through this. Putting his family through this. But when he went up onto the stand ,and I had to listen to him deny everything that we both knew had happened. It was devastating for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The complainant said that she was horrified when Mr Connolly accused her of \u201ccoming on to him.\u201d She said that she \u201cdidn\u2019t feel bad anymore\u201d when he accused her of telling lies about him and engaging in fantasy.<\/p>\n
She said she found the trial process extremely difficult.<\/p>\n
“The defence repeatedly questioned my honesty. They suggested I was lying…it felt humiliating and degrading. Each morning before trial I felt physically sick with anxiety.”<\/p>\n
“(But) I felt proud to be there, standing up for myself and I realised how manipulated I was. I saw him as a rapist and a man who abused me because he knew he had power over me.<\/p>\n
“The woman thanked her family and friends, gardai and her legal team for their help in relation to her case. She said that she doesn\u2019t want what occurred to her to have an impact on her life going forward.<\/p>\n
“I want to carry on with my life. I want to get a good job. I won\u2019t let the trauma he has caused me overcome me, and I won\u2019t let him take away my future.<\/p>\n
“By coming to court and telling my story, I am standing not only for myself but for the victims whose cases never make it to trial. I am giving a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves.<\/p>\n
The court was told that Connolly can be named once the complainant is not identified.<\/p>\n
Ms Justice Lankford jailed Connolly for nine years. She said that there was no basis for suspending any portion of the sentence. The sentence was backdated to December 19th, 2025, when Connolly first entered into custody.<\/p>\n
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie\/services\/helpline\/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999\/112. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A horse riding coach in his 60s who abused his position of trust by raping a 14-year-old girl,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-296616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}