Adrienne Margaret Ryan (née Butterworth; born 19 October 1960 in Skipton, Yorkshire) is a former councillor and mayor of Ku-ring-gai Council in Sydney, Australia.[1] She was married to former Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Peter Ryan. They divorced in 2011 after an extended separation.[2] [3]
She and her two daughters moved to Sydney in 1997 when her husband became the New South Wales Police Commissioner. Prior to coming to Australia, Ryan was also a police officer for a period of time, being involved in the Brixton riots and Notting Hill race riots in the 1980s. She has an honours degree in politics and international relations from Reading University in the United Kingdom.
Ryan has two daughters, Elizabeth Ryan (born 29 March 1988) and Georgina Ryan (born 1 September 1989) but had multiple miscarriages. In 2000, she published a book called A Silent Love about the impact of miscarriage and stillbirth.[4] [5]
In May 2005, Ryan moved to the Sydney suburb of Wahroonga after separating from her husband. She studied law at the University of Law, Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom. In 2014 she was called to the bar at The Honourable Society of The Middle Temple. She is a Harmsworth Scholar of the Middle Temple.[6]
In 2012 it was revealed that Ryan and her husband had been placed under surveillance in mid-December 1999 by the Special Crime and Internal Affairs (SCIA) branch of NSW Police. An undercover agent was told by his supervisor that the head of SCIA, assistant commissioner Mal Brammer, wanted him to watch the Ryans to find out who they met and if they were talking shop in case of a "security leak" when they went for a customary drink together after work at a bar near police headquarters.[7] Nothing untoward was found about the Ryans' behaviour, and surveillance was ended in January 2000 with no further action.[8]