Pinned girl in a Galway shop corner by her neck and roughly groped her from behind.

Vile John Ring, brother of Minister Michael Ring, escaped prison time for molesting a schoolgirl.

John Ring, 49, admitted to sexually assaulting the Transition Year student at his trial in December 2015. His young victim, who had just turned 17, was working in a north Co Galway shop in July 2014 when Ring entered and called her to the back, pretending to look for booze.

There, Ring pinned the girl in a corner by her neck and roughly groped her from behind.

Galway Circuit Criminal Court heard that the girl required counseling after the attack and is now nervous of people, especially men, if they come too close.

At his first sentencing hearing in March 2016, Ring was told he faced a four-year prison sentence for the assault. However, the court made it clear that his engagement with counselling would determine how the sentence would be served.

Over the next 20 months, successive hearings revealed Ring was addressing his sexual deviancy. Defence counsel Diarmuid Connolly requested the sentence to be finalized "in ease of everyone," adding that the latest probation report noted Ring was "genuinely trying to change his behaviour."

Judge Rory McCabe stated that a deterrent term would be appropriate and sentenced Ring to four years in prison, which he suspended for five years on condition of good behaviour.