Family of Anthony Lyons targeted by taxi drivers and media, court told

The family of a businessman were followed and abused when he was jailed for six months for a violent sex attack, a court has been told.

Anthony Lyons is facing a revised sentence for assaulting a woman after the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled the original prison term was too lenient.

His barrister Patrick Gageby told the three judge court, Lyons’s wife Eileen and their four children had suffered a campaign of harassment.

A 10-year-old boy being brought to school was among those targeted, he said.

Making submissions on what his client’s new jail term should be, Mr Gageby said a man who lived near the family, several taxi drivers and the media had targeted the family since the court case.

Lyons was sentenced to six years by Judge Desmond Hogan in July 2012 for attacking the then 27-year-old woman in the early hours of the morning of October 3rd, 2010. But the judge controversially suspended five-and-a-half years of the jail term and ordered him to pay his victim €75,000 in compensation.

Three judges previously upheld an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) against the length of the sentence on grounds the trial judge had been too lenient.

Dressed in a black coat, dark suit, blue shirt and burgundy tie, Lyons was supported by several family members during the hearing in the Hugh Kennedy Court at the Four Courts.

Lyons admitted the attack — in which the victim was rugby tackled to the ground and violently physically and sexually assaulted — but claimed he was overcome with an “irresistible urge” due to a combination of alcohol, cholesterol medicine and cough syrup.

The former aviation boss, from Griffith Avenue in north Dublin, was convicted by a jury after pleading not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the sexual assault. His lawyer also claimed he had been forced to seek work in the UK since his release.

Making submissions on what his client’s new jail term should be, Mr Gageby added: “The publicity in this case was unusual and an unfortunate consequence.”

Lyons has signed the sex offenders’ register in the UK and has a card to track his movements since his release almost a year ago. His victim’s family sat at the back of the courtroom for the 90 minute hearing.

The Court of Criminal Appeal reserved judgment on the revised sentence.