'I thought I'd die..thug who did this to me deserved more jail'

THE daughter of soccer pundit Roddy Collins yesterday watched a judge jail her attacker for two years and nine months and declared: “It should have been longer.”

- BY MICHAEL O'TOOLE

“I fully believed I was going to die,” Lauren Boyle Hanney, 24, also told us minutes after Ronaldo Lupo was sent to jail by Judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday for the brutal attack on her and a friend in December 2023.

Ms Boyle Hanney, who released these images of her battered and bruised face taken after the attack, is the daughter of Mr Collins, a pundit and former League of Ireland manager.

And, although Lupo was given a sentence of two years and nine months after he admitted attacking Ms Boyle Hanney and her friend Abby Tierney, he will walk free from prison in May 2027.

He is entitled to standard 25% remission and his sentence was backdated to February of this year when he went into custody - so he has just 18 months left to serve.

Speaking to this paper after the sentencing was handed down, Ms Boyle Hanney said she thought Lupo was going to kill her during the attack.

She said: “I fully believed I was going to die.

“He looked at us all and said you are all going to die tonight.

“There was such anger, I'll never forget it, in his eyes. He was going for weapons and I genuinely did, I thought someone was going to pass away that night. It was really, really scary.”

And she said she wanted a stronger sentence for him. She added: “I feel he should have gotten more. I just hope to get the message out that it's never okay for men to hit women - stand up and speak up.”

EDGE

Ms Boyle Hanney also spoke of the effect the attack had on her. She said: “I just hope it doesn’t happen to any other young woman again.