Sex attacker sent back to jail for extra 18 months

Convicted sex attacker Anthony Lyons bowed his head yesterday when a judge said he must go back to prison to serve another 18 months on top of six months already served.

The aviation broker — given an effective six-month sentence in July 2012 for attacking and sexually assaulting a 27-year-old woman near his home on Griffith Avenue, Dublin, in the early hours of October 3, 2010 — was told by Mr Justice John Murray he was to go back to prison immediately.

At his trial, Lyons had pleaded not guilty but was convicted and received a six-year jail sentence with five-and-a-half years of the term suspended, meaning he got an effective six-month stay in jail

After serving that sentence, he was released in December 2012. The DPP appealed the decision as being unduly lenient.

Yesterday, the Court of Criminal Appeal said the correct sentence was six years with four years suspended. Taking into account the six months already served, Lyons has another 18 months to serve.

The appeals court said trial judge Desmond Hogan acknowledged the seriousness and gravity of the offence and, having addressed a range of mitigating factors, sentence was imposed.

The DPP had argued undue leniency because Judge Hogan attached undue weight to those factors, one of which was a compensation order of €75,000 for the victim in accordance with the statutory scheme.

In the appeals court’s view, the trial judge erred in attaching undue weight to the “totality of the mitigating factors”.

On that basis, the original sentence was quashed and, in considering afresh the sentence to be imposed, the Court of Criminal Appeal had regard to the seriousness of the offence, the impact on the victim, the relevant mitigating factors before the trial court, and any further factors which had arisen since then.

The appeals court had been told that the victim received a substantial sum in settlement of a separate civil action against Lyons but it did not consider this a relevant mitigating factor.

The totality of hardship included time already served in prison, the fact that he must remain a registered sex offender for 10 years, and that he had suffered permanent damage to his business and livelihood. It also included that he had been forced to live abroad because of the “exceptional form of sensational attack on his reputation in certain quarters of the media”.

The appeals court said the “prime responsibility” for negative consequences and opprobrium lay clearly with Lyons. The consequences for the victim were traumatic and tragic and she was “emotionally devastated” by the attack, the court said, adding that it will be a long time, if ever, before she feels she can walk safely to her home along a public street at night.

Victim talks

The verdict by the Court of Criminal Appeal was welcomed by Anthony Lyons’s victim and her family.

She said the last four years were extremely painful and prolonged, and traumatic for her and her family. She said no victim should have to endure such long court proceedings, and thanked the men who came to her aid on the night she was attacked, specifically the man who disturbed Lyons and forced him to flee.

Her family criticised Lyons and said he had at no stage shown remorse for his violent and vicious attack on their daughter.

Both the victim and her family thanked gardaí for their work, the DPP for appealing the original sentence, the Rotunda Hospital and the doctors, counsellors, and the Rape Crisis Centre.

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre chief executive Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop praised the victim’s courage for staying the course of the criminal justice system, and said it is a significant societal marker that the Court of Criminal Appeal returned Lyons to jail.

- Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-hour national helpline is 1800 778888.

— Niall Murray