A woman has been jailed for four years after she falsely accused social workers, a solicitor and a garda of raping and sexually abusing her, introducing her to a paedophile ring and trafficking her in to prostitution.
Sonya Egan (43), of The Lawn, Lios Cara, Killeens, Co Cork, had pleaded guilty earlier this year to 14 charges of making false statements and reports in relation to eight men and three women. She was sentenced on Wednesday by Judge Catherine Staines at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
Egan made false allegations of rape and sexual assault against three senior social workers, a solicitor and a garda as well of allegations she was harassed by another solicitor, physically assaulted by a politician and his partner, and that another social worker accessed child sexual abuse images.
Det Sgt James Buckley said the circumstances of the case were “complex” and Egan had “a complicated personal history” after she went into the care of the State while in her teens, which brought her into contact with social workers working with the Southern Health Board and Tusla.
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She made her first false statement in 2016 against a senior social worker, alleging that he had raped and sexually assaulted her when she was a minor and an adult. She claimed that he later “pimped” her out to other men and was involved in trafficking her and other girls into prostitution.
Egan was a qualified social worker, even though she never practised, and the senior social worker reported her to CORU, the regulatory body for the profession. When a solicitor representing CORU contacted Egan, she made a complaint to gardaí saying the solicitor had harassed her.
She went on to make allegations of sexual assault and rape against two other social workers with Tusla and a solicitor engaged by them to seek an injunction against her making such allegations. She also alleged a fourth social worker was accessing child sexual abuse images on her computer.
She then raised the allegations with a politician and tried to get him to get RTÉ Prime Time to investigate her allegations. When the politician reported that Egan had started harassing him, she alleged that he physically assaulted her and that his partner had done likewise.
Historic abuse
Egan’s last false allegation was against a garda appointed to investigate her complaints, who she made a complaint of historic abuse against. She sent details of the false allegation to the Minister for Justice, Garda Commissioner, senior Garda management in Cork, the Garda Ombudsman and RTÉ’s Prime Time.
Det Sgt Buckley said Egan’s complaints were all investigated by gardaí and they could find no evidence to support any of them. He said the claims had caused huge distress and damage to all the victims, some of whom were suspended while they were investigated by regulatory authorities.
He told the court that Egan has two previous convictions for harassment. She pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court last year to harassing a former TD and a businesswoman and was currently serving two years in jail for these offences.
Ronan Munro SC, for Egan, said his client had waived her right to attend court either in person or by video link and was currently in the advanced stage of a hunger strike in Limerick Prison, where she is serving the harassment sentence.
‘Pathological liar’
Mr Munro said Egan was “a pathological liar” and it was “hard to know what is the truth, and what is made up” when speaking to her. “It is hard to keep up with the allegations … they are often made in vivid terms and are very detailed even though they are untrue.”
He said forensic psychologist Dr Rioghnach O’Leary had met and interviewed Egan on a number of occasions and carried out various psychometric tests and found that she suffered from emotional disregulation, varying from friendly and cheerful to angry and agitated.
He said Dr O’Leary concluded that Egan suffered from “a borderline personality disorder with compulsive lying and mini-psychoses”. He noted that Egan had a history of self-harm but this was often in an attempt to manipulate others into doing what she wanted.
Four of the injured parties submitted victim impact statements and, while they were not disclosed in open court, Judge Staines said they were most harrowing such reports she had ever read.
“One victim was accused of rape and sexual abuse. A letter of complaint was sent to his employer, to An Garda Síochána and to the Minister for Health. While formal investigations were taking place he had to stand aside. His reputation was ruined. It effectively ended his whole career,” she said.
“Another victim was accused of running a paedophile ring. He had given his life to child protection. She wrote to his employer, wrote to the police and there were hours and hours of garda interviews. She destroyed his career and caused huge emotional trauma.”
Judge Staines said this victim, who had dedicated his life’s work to protecting children, found himself having to talk to his own children about what a paedophile ring was because of the allegations Egan posted on social media, adding that social media had allowed her to circulate these false allegations.
Devastation caused
“I cannot begin to understand the harm and devastation caused to these unfortunate, professional people,” said Judge Staines, who noted that the maximum penalty for the offences was five years.
She acknowledged that it would have been a difficult and complex case to contest, so Egan’s guilty pleas were of value, but the aggravating factors included the horrific and vile nature of the allegations and the fact that there were multiple victims.
Judge Staines sentenced Egan to three years in jail for the offences against the first eight victims and to three years consecutively for the offences against the garda. She suspended the final two years of the latter sentence, leaving Egan with four years to serve.
She made it a condition of suspending the sentence that Egan would remain under the supervision of the Probation Service for five years, attend whatever psychotherapy was deemed appropriate and have no contact with any of the victims and post nothing about them on social media upon her release.
