Man 'kicked spirit out of me', victim tells court

A former car dealership owner who viciously assaulted his then partner and her female friend after a night out will be sentenced later this year at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Garda Joanne Brogan revealed that Shane Lyons (aged 41) began the attack on his ex-girlfriend by pushing her onto a bed and strangling her until her body went limp and her eyes “felt like they were about to pop”.

He strangled Ms Fiona Kelly twice more during the incident and flung her friend Ms Kerry Lee Ball, whom he had met for the first time that night and who had given birth six weeks previously, out the front door onto her back.

Garda Brogan revealed that some of the attack was captured on Lyons’s home CCTV system which was seized as part of the investigation.

Lyons, of Rock Grove, Harolds Grange, Rathfarnham, initially elected for trial on the matter but eventually pleaded guilty to assaulting Ms Kelly and Ms Ball causing them harm at his address on August 31, 2009.

He has seven previous convictions including two minor assaults.

Garda Brogan told Ms Cathleen Noctor BL, prosecuting, that Ms Kelly had left Lyons, Ms Ball and a third party at a city centre nightclub without telling anyone and returned to her ex-partner’s home.

She later told gardaí that Lyons returned to the premises, told her to get out of bed and began “ranting and raving” about her leaving him as she gathered some personal things from downstairs.

Lyons then pushed her up against a downstairs bedroom wall, followed her back upstairs, flung her onto a bed and strangled her till her body went limp.

He locked her in the room, told her to sleep on the floor and removed her mobile phone battery when she tried to call a relative for help.

He “boxed” her on the side of the head but eventually let her out of the room when she became hysterical.

Ms Ball arrived at the premises in a cab and tried to separate Ms Kelly from Lyons when he resumed strangling her during a later altercation in the bedroom.

Ms Kelly had approached Lyons with a bottle opener when he later feel asleep, but he woke up, lifted her up by the throat with both hands and threatened to kill her.

He shoved Ms Ball away as she tried to stop the attack several times and punched her to the side of her head.

The fight moved downstairs after Ms Ball had tripped and fallen in the hallway while trying to run away. Lyons then flung Ms Ball out the front door onto her back and pinned Ms Kelly to a car by her throat.

Garda Joanne Brogan told Ms Noctor that Ms Kelly managed to phone emergency services and an ambulance crew arrived to take Ms Ball to hospital on a spinal board.

The garda revealed that Ms Ball discharged herself from hospital a short time later because she had to tend to her baby and had another child starting school that morning.

She said Lyons denied assaulting either woman in interview and elected for trial before eventually pleading guilty.

Garda Brogan agreed with Mr Pieter Le Vert BL, defending, that Lyons’s guilty plea was “helpful to the prosecution” and that his house, which will now be repossessed, had been burgled since his entering into custody on the matter.

Mr Le Vert submitted to Judge Tony Hunt in mitigation that his client had been in a “dark place” at the time of the attacks and had recently separated from his wife before starting a relationship with Ms Kelly.

He said Lyons has “no excuse” for what happened but hadn’t put the women through a trial, though his plea was “late in the day”.

Counsel said his client had taken up computer studies and music in prison and while on bail had attended counselling sessions.

He asked Judge Hunt to be as lenient with his client as possible, taking into account the efforts made to better himself and time spent in custody.

The judge adjourned the matter until December.

Victim impact statements

Ms Ball took the witness stand and read from her victim impact statement, in which she revealed she has suffered over €4,000 in counselling sessions, lost wages and medical costs.

She said she feels Lyons, whom she hadn’t known long enough that night to “judge” him, is in need of anger management therapy.

She said she constantly wakes up with nightmares and began relying on prescription drugs to cope.

She said Lyons had “kicked the spirit out of a once social, bubbly girl”.

“You’ve changed me as a person in your fists and your anger”, she said.

She said she would be happy “if you just admit you were wrong”.

Ms Kelly in her victim impact statement, read out by Ms Noctor, said she suffers flashbacks of Lyons strangling her and that his face “of pure evil” is one that will be with her for the rest of her life.

She said she had thought she was going to die and felt her eyeballs were going to pop, before Lyons told her to sleep on the floor “like the animal that I was”.

She said she was constantly afraid she would see Lyons and will have to live with the guilt of what had happened to Ms Ball.