Sex offender Anthony Lyons released from prison

Businessman Anthony Lyons has been released from Arbour Hill prison after serving a sentence for sexually assaulting a woman in Dublin.

The 54 year-old left the jail’s front entrance and got into a waiting taxi at about 9am. He made no comment to reporters at the scene.

Mr Lyons was released after spending 13 months in prison after the State successfully appealed his “unduly lenient” original sentence which saw him imprisoned for six months in 2012 for the attack on Griffith Avenue.

There was a public outcry after the aviation broker had five and a half years of a six year sentence suspended by judge Desmond Hogan following the sexual assault trial three years ago.

He was also then ordered to pay €75,000 compensation to the victim as part of a settlement package which, it later emerged, came to a total of €200,000.

Mr Lyons’ legal counsel said his client was not in control of his actions on the morning of October 3rd, 2010 due to a combination of alcohol, cholesterol medication and cough syrup he had consumed in the preceding hours.

Family members of the victim and sexual violence survivors’ groups condemned the court’s decision.

At an appeal hearing last year, it was argued that he already suffered considerably due to damage done to his business along with intrusion into his personal and family life by members of the media.

He was handed an additional 18-month sentence by Mr Justice John Murray in August 2014 after it was determined the trial judge erred in attaching undue weight to the "totality of the mitigating factors".