A high-profile aviation broker has been convicted of sexual assault after a jury rejected his claim that his cholesterol medication made him do it.
Anthony Lyons (51), of Griffith Avenue in Dublin had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the sexual assault of the 27-year-old woman in the early hours of October 3rd, 2010.
Lyons was head of the aviation company Santos Dumont before stepping aside after being charged.
Lyons admitted the attack but claimed he was overcome with an “irresistible urge” due to the combination of alcohol, the cholesterol medicine Rosuvastatin and cough syrup.
The sentence hearing began immediately after the jury’s verdict but Lyons will not have his punishment finalised until the end of July as Judge Desmond Hogan said he wanted time to read the victim impact report.
He also ordered a probation report be prepared on Lyons before remanding him on continuing bail and registering him as a sex offender. Gardai requested that he surrender his passport but the judge said this was not necessary.
The eight day trial heard extensive expert evidence on the potential effects of the cholesterol drug. The jury took just over three hours to reject the defence claim that the medicine caused Lyons to lose control of his actions and attack the woman.
The victim was walking along a north Dublin Street when Lyons came up behind her and put his arm around her before asking if she would be okay getting home. He then rugby tackled her to the ground.
“As he was trying to push me into dark area where the wooded area is, I hit him over the head with my phone as hard as I could,” she said. “I was screaming ‘no, no, no’ and ‘help’ and everything I could think of.” The woman said she was face down on
the ground while Lyons was groping and fondling her from behind. She said his full weight was on her and she couldn’t move.
“I said at one point I was pregnant and asked him to stop,” she said.
The woman said that while Lyons was struggling to remove her underwear, she phoned gardai and told them she was being raped. She said she was fondled and digitally penetrated during the attack until a passer-by came to her aid causing Lyons to flee.
Gardai were immediately alerted and Lyons was arrested nearby. He initially completely denied the offence and was released on bail. Several months later he handed a statement to gardai admitting the attack but claiming he was overcome with an “irresistible urge” brought on by the cholesterol medication he had started taking the day before.
Because of his admissions, most of the trial focused on whether the drug Rosuvastatin was to blame for Lyons’ actions.
A medical expert for the prosecution told the jury that there is no evidence that cholesterol medication can cause increased aggression and that even if it did, Mr Lyons was not on it long enough for it to take effect.
Professor Alice Stanton, who is a specialist in clinical pharmacology, said clinical trials of Rosuvastatin provided no evidence that it caused increased irritability, aggression or violence.
An expert witness for the defence pointed to several instances of patients on such medications becoming aggressive. He also said the speed they can affect the human brain cannot be know for certain as the drugs have only been tested on rat brains.
Dr Malcolm Vandenburg told defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC about case studies which listed several patients who were on similar types of medication and showed highly aggressive behaviour including one man who chased his wife around the room.
Lyons’s wife of 22 years, Eileen, gave character evidence for her husband. She said the attack was “beyond all understanding” and that her husband had “never lifted a hand” to her or anyone else.
Prosecuting counsel Kerida Naidoo BL asked Ms Lyons: “Isn’t it the reality that you just can’t admit your husband is guilty of this crime?” “That’s not the reality, my husband is a kind and gentle man”, she responded before beginning to cry.
During the sentence hearing, Mr Gageby presented a doctor’s report stating the cough syrup mixed with the alcohol could also have affected Lyons’s actions. He said this was not an excuse but perhaps an explanation.
He handed in a “very large bundle of references” offering “unstinting support” for Lyons. Counsel said that Lyons was willing to pay compensation to the victim but that it was not appropriate to offer this before sentence was passed.
Mr Gageby also asked Judge Hogan to take into account the large amount of media publicity the trial has received and its effect on Lyons’s family.