Fury over Christmas release for sex attacker

The aunt of a woman sexually assaulted by wealthy businessman Anthony Lyons has revealed her family’s anguish at the fact that he will be home for Christmas.

In August, Lyons, aged 51, of Griffith Avenue, Dublin, was ordered to pay €75,000 compensation to the woman as Judge Desmond Hogan suspended five-and-a-half years of the aviation broker’s six-year sentence.

“It is just horrendous,” said the victim’s aunt yesterday. “Everyone is gobsmacked. He has only three weeks to go and then his sentence is over, but our sentence continues and we live with it every day.”

The aunt, who cannot be named in order to protect the victim’s identity, said she feared for the sanity of her brother, the victim’s father. On the morning of Jul 31 last, as the case concluded, the victim’s father drove to Lyons’s home in a rage, blasting his car horn, shaking the gates, and prompting a massive security alert.

Afterwards he admitted that he “blew a fuse”.

“I had to be quiet for more than a year for the case, and I guess I just flipped, but it won’t happen again,” he said.

He left the scene peacefully after gardaí arrived.

“My brother will end up in a mental home or an asylum,” said the victim’s aunt yesterday. “This is his daughter it happened to and the suspended sentence is what drove my brother to do what he did.”

Speaking on RTÉ radio, the aunt added: “Our family have to live with this. That girl is living a nightmare every day and there is no way that he should be allowed to move back home. After hearing this, her nerves are gone and the doctor is prescribing something for her.”

The family want Lyons to move home in order to lessen the trauma his victim is experiencing.

“There is no way that he should be allowed to move back into the area,” she said. “He will be 100% unwelcome and the people in the area have no time for him. He has brought this on our family and also on his own family.”

The aunt’s anger mirrors that of the victim’s parents. After the case ended, her mother said compensation was not enough to make up for the hurt caused. “Lyons himself did not take the stand, but his wife took the stand as a character witness for him and this was the reason why my husband was so upset,” she said.

During the assault, Lyons tackled his victim to the ground in an unlit part of Griffith Avenue in the early hours of Oct 3, 2010.

Lyons pleaded not guilty on the grounds he was overcome with an “irresistible urge” due to a combination of alcohol, cholesterol medicine, and cough syrup.

He was head of aviation leasing company Santos Dumont but stepped down after being charged. However, as a 91% shareholder, he is still entitled to almost all its profits. The rest of the firm is owned by his wife Eileen.

Lyons also owns several properties. They include a house on Fleming Rd in Drumcondra, Dublin, and an apartment in Custom House Square in the IFSC. Both properties are owned jointly with his wife.