Shane Flanagan has been sentenced to seven years in jail after he was convicted of inciting the rape of a colleague.
The former Garda pleaded to guilty to two charges of inciting two men to rape his colleague, six further charges of of endangering the victim and her teenage daughters, as well as an additonal four counts of possession of child sexual abuse images.
On The Pat Kenny Show, Courts Correspondent Frank Greaney described his offending as “deeply disturbing”.
“We heard that he and the woman were known to each other,” he explained.
“Both members of An Garda Síochána, they were friends outside of work - but there was no history of any sexual or romantic relationship between them.
“In late 2020, Shane Flanagan set up an account on a fetish life website called FetLife.
“He used her personal information to do that and he also used photographs of her and her two daughters - many of which he had taken from her social media profile.”
Main entrance to the Criminal Courts of Justice. Picture by: Alamy.com.The court was informed that Flanagan impersonated her on this website and spoke to two men were interested in roleplay called CNC - consensual non consent.
It is a sexual fetish in which a person gives advanced consent to someone to meet them and then rape them at an agreed place.
“[Flanagan] gave quite detailed descriptions about her desire to have them break into her home and rape her, or kidnap her while she was out for a jog,” Mr Greaney said.
“We heard he went so far as to send on her actual address and Eircode, details about her home, the car that she was driving at the time.
“He engaged in a lot of detailed chat online, described by the judge as ‘graphic’ and ‘disturbing’.
“He even suggested proposed dates for when it should happen in this conversation with the men online.”
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Flanagan was caught when one of the men he was chatting to decided to contact his colleague through her actual Facebook page.
After receiving the message, his colleague reported it to the Gardaí.
“The woman herself did her own investigations and it was later emerged through a painstaking investigation that Shane Flanagan was the one behind that FetLife account,” Mr Greaney said.
“His home was searched, his laptop, phone among the items seized.”
Flanagan was given an eight year sentence with the final year suspended.
Main image: Gardaí. Picture by: Leah Farrell/© RollingNews.ie
