A MAN has been sentenced to six years in prison for the attempted kidnapping of a woman in Dublin last year.
21-year-old Martin Gallagher pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing harm and false imprisonment during an incident on Blackhorse Avenue in Dublin in January of last year.
Gallagher accepted the charges against him after first insisting to gardaí that it was a joke gone wrong, and that he had thought the woman he assaulted was a male friend of his.
Before this, he had denied any involvement and told investigating gardaí that he had been asleep at home at the time the attack took place.
Gallagher has now been sentenced to six years in prison to reflect the seriousness of the incident, RTÉ News reports.
Martin Gallagher, 21, has been sentenced to 6 years in prison (Image: Facebook)As we reported last year, the victim, a 69-year-old woman, was walking on Blackhorse Avenue on 6 January at around 7.30am when she passed a car with its boot open.
A man, later identified as Martin Gallagher, approached her and forced her into the boot but could not close the door as the woman's legs were hanging out. She was then pulled from the boot after grabbing a child's jacket, and the attacker then allegedly tried to force her into a passenger seat.
The woman succeeded in fighting her attacker, and when a passing car came to a stop the assailant drove off. The victim was able to keep hold of the child's jacket throughout the struggle, which assisted in identifying Martin Gallagher as her attacker.
The scene on Blackhorse Avenue with Gardaí conducting stops following the attempted abduction in January last year (An Garda Síochána)She was able to give a description of the attacker, the car and a partial vehicle license plate number, which aided gardaí in narrowing down the search for the assailant, and DNA evidence from scrapings under her nails matched that of Martin Gallagher.
Sentencing today, Judge Martin Nolan commended the woman's bravery and wished her the best of luck in her future, RTÉ News reports.
