22-07-2025
Daughter of man pushed to death by his partner upset by leniency of sentence
The daughter of a man who died after being pushed by his partner has told of the family's upset at what they perceive as the leniency of the sentence and how they were censored when providing victim impact statements.
Karen Ryan's father James 'Shay' Ryan died after his partner Olesja Hertova 'forcefully' pushed him. Hertova was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison when she pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on July 4th.
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The sentence was backdated to when she went into custody in August 2024.
Ms Ryan told RTÉ radio's Oliver Callan show that she had been suspicious of the circumstances surrounding her father's death as there had been a history of domestic violence by Hertova against her father and their daughter Ellie, which she had reported to Tusla.
However, she was told that the details of the domestic violence had to be retracted from her victim impact statement because Hertova pleaded guilty.
'If this had gone to trial, all that domestic violence history would have been allowed into trial. But because she had admitted to manslaughter, it's not allowed in. So what we would like to see is a change in the reform of this.
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'So that just with domestic violence for a start, they would allow call-outs, anything to do with domestic violence (to be entered into evidence).
"So the judge can turn around and say, was there a history of domestic violence in this home? And the judge could look and then the judge could make his own decision, okay, well there was a history of domestic violence, he didn't realise that there was a history of domestic violence there.'
'I've taken Ellie into my home. Ellie now lives with me. I can't put into words any of trauma that she's experienced. None of that can come into the victim impact statements. I can't mention the word domestic violence.
"That all had to be retracted and then on top of that after I've handed that over and they retract that then they go 'okay, now we're handing it over to Olesja's defence team and they can retract whatever they want out of that.'
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It was frustrating that none of the calls to Tusla or the gardai could be included in the statements. The family had been 'shocked, upset, frustrated, angry' at the sentence of two years and nine months.
'I don't think there's enough words in the dictionary to describe how the whole family felt. We were brought in by the DPP a couple of weeks prior to this to say that she's probably going to serve less than five years. We were told that any domestic violence incidents that were called to the house would not be taken into effect because she had admitted to it and it wasn't going to trial.
'She had no prior convictions. My dad had two safety orders that were never put through the courts. When we were going through his documents in the house, we found one of them.
"Ellie had told us that her mam had found one of them and ripped them up so my dad couldn't activate the other one, and we found one in the house when we were clearing up.
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'We don't know (why he did not activate the safety order). Now, I do know that she had threatened my dad before saying that she was going to take Ellie back to the Czech Republic.' She said she would encourage anyone experiencing domestic violence, be they male or female, to speak to someone.
'Just speak to somebody, anyone, and just have a chat, just please don't end up like our family, and also remember, if there's kids in the family home, they're going to be suffering as well.
Ms Ryan said that she would never stop Ellie from seeing her mother. 'At the end of the day, it's still her mum. So I would back her 100 percent if she wanted to see her mum.
"At the moment she has no interest in seeing her mum and she was very, very disappointed and angry with the sentence that the judge did pass down. And I can 100 percent understand the loss that she has with her mam and her dad.'
