Sex attacker’s children harassed after sentencing

Convicted sex attacker Anthony Lyons had to leave his home to live and work in England after his release from prison because of media attention on him and his family, it was claimed before the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.

Counsel for Lyons said the 52-year old businessman — sentenced to six years with five-and-a-half years suspended for the sexual assault of a 27-year-old woman three years ago near his home — was a decent, hardworking man who was thought very highly of before his “very public and spectacular fall from grace”.

However, Patrick Gageby SC said: “The level of publicity has marked him almost as an outlaw in an age when such a concept seems medieval.”