A Limerick taxi driver who raped a then 18-year-old woman when driving her home from a nightclub has had his seven-year sentence increased following a successful appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
He will not spend any extra time in prison after the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday suspended three years of a newly imposed 10-year sentence.
The DPP had sought to appeal what it submitted was the undue leniency of the seven-year sentence imposed on John Ryan (45), of Clonard, Westbury, who was jailed after a jury found him guilty of rape and sexual assault by majority verdict in November 2009. Ryan had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to the rape and sexual assault of the woman on October 17th, 2007, after picking her up in his cab near the nightclub.