A FORMER chief executive of Ryanair who suffers from psychosis sexually assaulted a young woman and then flashed his penis to gardaí. He was given a two-year sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday.
Eugene O’Neill (52), who was also previously the managing director of the Sunday Tribune, was convicted by a jury of sexually assaulting the woman in her home in south Dublin on November 19th, 2006.
O’Neill, Shanganagh Grove, Shankill, Co Dublin, suffers from psychosis and had not taken his medication for two days prior to the attack. He told gardaí he was psychotic at the time and claimed he was trying to “call the devil” but didn’t realise there was anyone else in the house.
The jury of seven women and five men returned an 11-1 majority verdict after over five hours of deliberation and a five-day trial.
Judge Patricia Ryan imposed a two-year sentence which she backdated to last December. She ordered that O’Neill receive appropriate medical treatment while in custody.
O’Neill wrestled the woman to the ground and sexually assaulted her after chasing her from her bedroom.
Gardaí said that when they came to arrest him he stood in the window showing his penis, calling it “the devil’s penis.” They also said he called them “pussies” and told them to “show me your pussies.”
The woman said he knocked on her bedroom door before entering. He claimed he was instead knocking on the neighbouring bathroom door because he believed the devil was in there.
The woman fled downstairs and tried to get out but the front door was locked. She then went into the living room and attempted to hold the door closed.
O’Neill forced it opened and struggled with the woman, causing her to fall on the ground. He then sexually assualted her. At this point she told him: “Okay, okay, I’ll do whatever you want.” This caused him to relax allowing her to get up and grab the coffee table as weapon. She threatened to hit him with it before escaping out the window and running across several gardens.
She met an elderly couple in their garden who brought her inside and called the gardaí. When they went to arrest O’Neill he was standing in the front window showing his “devil’s penis”.
In a voluntary statement to gardaí, O’Neill denied assaulting the woman or taunting the gardaí. He said he entered the living room to find her “crawling out the window”.
The woman wrote in her victim impact statement that since the incident she is afraid to be alone and is frightened by middle-aged men. She accepted the incident arose from him not taking his medication and said she did not want O’Neill to go to jail.
Defence counsel Seán Gillane described O’Neill as a “very ill man” who had no previous convictions and had achieved astounding success in the business world.
In evidence on his own behalf O’Neill said he graduated with a masters in business with the highest marks recorded for several years, before taking a job with IIB in the corporate finance division. In IIB he was promoted to finance director, the youngest in the company’s history. O’Neill said that after managing a private fund for Ryanair founder, the late Tony Ryan, he was made chief executive of the company in the 1980s.
He was instrumental in expanding Ryanair across Europe and earned a 90 per cent return on investments. He said he was dismissed by Mr Ryan after a dispute involving a complaint to the EU aviation authority about Aer Lingus’s alleged involvement in anti-competitive practices.
O’Neill said that at about this time his mental health began to decline. He invested heavily in a business venture in Tanzania on the recommendation of the murdered journalist, Veronica Guerin, but after this his fortunes went into decline and his marriage broke up.