Jail for man who attacked girlfriend who didn’t eat dinner he cooked

A man who threatened to chop her his then girlfriend and feed her to the pigs after she refused to eat a dinner he cooked has been sent to prison.

Roisin MacNeilis had to flee out a window to to get away from Stephen Coveney-Ryan, who threatened to kill and her parents and produced a fishing knife during an attack.

Ms MacNeilis nursed the couple’s infant daughter at the back of the courtroom as Judge John Aylmer jailed Coveney-Ryan for three years at Letterkenny Circuit Court.

The couple had met only a few weeks earlier on St Patrick's Day, March 17, 2021, by chance at Busaras.

They struck up a conversation and kept in contact by text. However, Coveney-Ryan called Ms MacNeilis one day and said he was homeless.

She invited him to stay with her at her home in Donegal Town and they began a relationship.

As the weeks went on Ms MacNeilis claimed he changed and became aggressive and jealous.

On July 10, 2021, the accused finally snapped and attacked Ms MacNeilis.

The court was told that the accused had made dinner but Ms MacNeilis said she was not hungry but decided to eat a bowl of cereal instead.

He went for a walk and when he came back they initially went to separate bedrooms but Coveney Ryan later got int the bed beside Ms MacNeilis and then began to attack her.

He put his elbow into her neck and then put his hands around her neck and she was finding it hard to breath. Ms MacNeilis said she thought she was going to die at this point.

She managed to get to the front door but there were no keys in it and he followed her into the bathroom and began choking her again.

He constantly shouted at Ms MacNeilis who was eight weeks pregnant at this stage. He told her she wasn't fit to be a mother and that he was going to drown her and kill them both.

During the course of the attack he is also charged with producing a fishing knife.

Coveney-Ryan, aged 26 with an address at O'Clerigh Avenue, Donegal Town but originally from Co Tipperary, was arrested and taken to Ballyshannon Garda Station to be interviewed.

Ms MacNeilis told in a victim impact statement how she feared for herself and her daughter when Coveney-Ryan is freed from prison.

Coveney-Ryan, Ms MacNeilis said, ‘changes his mood like the wind’.

“I was questioning if anything was real,” she said. “Was it ever about love or was it about control? I contemplate every day if I became too trusting, too forgiving.”

MacNeilis said she felt ‘emotionally scarred’ from the terrifying incident and how she ‘just prays that me and my daughter can be safe’.

Barrister, Mr David Byrnes, said Coveney-Ryan wished to apologise for what his victim endured.

During his time in remand in prison, Coveney Ryan has also completed a number of courses including an 'alternative to violence' and Irish Red Cross course.

Judge Aylmer said the threats were ‘truly terrifying’ for the victim and the production of the knife ad ‘undoubtedly added to the terror’. He placed the offence in the midrange, meriting a sentence of five years in prison before mitigation.

Coveney-Ryan had co-operated and tendered a guilty plea. Judge Aylmer said he accepted Coveney-Ryan’s remorse as being genuine. The accused had been diagnosed as having an emotionally-unstable personality disorder, but had been engaging in a number of courses while in prison.

Coveney-Ryan was jailed for four years on each count, with the sentences to run concurrently and the final 12 months was suspended on the accused entering a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour following his release.