Andrew Carey
HAVING spent 19 of his 36 years in prison while still maintaining his “absolute innocence”, Limerick criminal Zachary Coughlan Ryan has been jailed for ten years for a tiger kidnapping.
Last October, a jury found him guilty of kidnapping two teenage boys at knife and gun point in August 2012 and demanding €500,000 for their safe release.
One of the teenagers was released to deliver the ransom message while his companion, whose mother was a postmistress, was held at knifepoint and brought to a field on the outskirts of the city.
Coughlan Ryan was one of three men involved in what was described at Limerick Circuit Court as an “amateurish heist”.
This Tuesday he was jailed by Judge Carroll Moran for ten years.
One of the abductors has since absconded while a 17-year-old teenage kidnapper, Jonathan Blackhall was previously sentenced to five years detention and supervision.
Sentencing was delayed while a Cork Circuit Court judge decided if he would activate a two year suspended sentence for assaulting a prison officer in Cork in 2011. Sentencing proceeded when that sentence was activated on January 21.
Judge Carroll Moran was told that Coughlan Ryan had served, the “full Home Office tarriff in the UK” for a robbery and had other convictions for violent offences including the assault of prison officers and, escaping from lawful custody and possession of knives.
Before his capture in 2012, he attempted to flee from Gardaí on two occasions while the investigation was ongoing.
Brendan NIx, SC, told the court that his client still “maintains his absolute innocence”, claiming that he didn’t commit the crime he has been convicted of.
The ten year sentence was reduced to eight years and three months as Judge Moran took into account the 17 months that Coughlan Ryan has been in custody since his arrest.
Amid heightened security with armed gardai covering all exits and six prison officers nearby, Coughlan Ryan did not speak during the hearing, only to nod to his Counsel at the benches and acknowledge family members in public gallery,
