Sex attacker walks free after 6 months

Sex attacker Anthony Lyons will walk out of jail today with an appeal against the leniency of his six-month sentence still pending.

Lyons aged 52 — who was highly successful in business with his aircraft leasing company — was jailed in July when he followed a woman home from a pub near his home in Dublin.

The father-of-four, from Griffith Avenue, had claimed he was innocent and blamed his behaviour on a side-effect from the medication he was taking.

His sentence, which had five-and-a-half years suspended, included an order by the Circuit Criminal Court to pay his victim €75,000.

The DPP had lodged an appeal against his sentence, saying it was too lenient.

It had also looked for this matter to be heard before he was released.

However, last month the Court of Criminal Appeal said it could not facilitate the hearing because Lyons’s barrister was working on a different murder trial.

It said the businessman, who controlled the Santos Dumont company, was entitled to his counsel.

The case will be heard after Christmas.

If the DPP’s appeal is successful, and a longer sentence imposed, Lyons would have to return to prison.

When Lyons was arrested near the scene of the attack in Oct 2010, he denied the attack on the 27-year-old woman.

But he changed his story 10 days later when he claimed it was due to the medication he was taking.

He had tackled the woman to the ground before assaulting her behind a tree on Griffith Avenue.