The Court of Criminal Appeal will give judgment later on what further sentence should be imposed on a businessman who sexually assaulted a young woman as she walked home one night.
The court ruled earlier this month that the effective six-month sentence given in July 2012 to Anthony Lyons was too lenient.
Patrick Gageby SC, for Lyons, urged the court yesterday, when assessing sentence, to consider the hardship suffered by not just his client but his innocent wife and four children who had been subjected to intense publicity, particularly from tabloid newspapers, some of which referred to him as a monster.
Mr Gageby said his client was a decent, hardworking man who was thought highly of before his “public and spectacular fall from grace”. The publicity had marked him “almost as an outlaw in an age when such a concept seems medieval”.
Lyons (52), from Griffith Avenue in Dublin, was sentenced to six years but had 5½ years suspended for the attack on the then 27-year-old woman in the early hours of October 3rd, 2010.
The DPP appealed the leniency of the sentence and, although he has since served the six months, he faces being returned to prison if the court decides it should be increased.
He had also been ordered to pay €75,000 in compensation to his victim, although the DPP's counsel told the three-judge appeal court yesterday the victim had not yet elected to receive it.
Forced to the ground
The court heard Lyons had rugby tackled her to the ground within 500 yards of his home on Griffith Avenue at 2.30am, before sexually assaulting her. He originally denied the assault but later claimed his actions were due to a mix of cholesterol medication and alcohol.
During the hearing, Mr Justice John Murray, presiding, remarked it appeared the DPP was indifferent to “distortions” and “misrepresentations” about the accused while the case was still before the courts. This included one article which claimed Lyons had “tracked” his victim when that was never part of the prosecution case, the judge said.
While a 1984 Supreme Court judgment had stated judges could not be prejudiced by publicity, Mr Justice Murray said he wondered could it be presumed the court would be affected by “extreme” and sensational headlines.
“Assuming the court is not, would it alter the public perception nevertheless that it may be,” he said.
Mr Gageby said the publicity included unwarranted attention on his client's family, involving pictures of their home and of the children. There was also intimidation by a local man who, the day after Lyons went to prison, beset their home, blared car horns and knocked on their door, he said.
'Hounded by media'
The eldest son complained to his mother about being "hounded by the media", including being followed on his way to primary school to collect his younger brother.
An expert had reviewed the media coverage which included a picture in the Irish Daily Mail of the eldest son and and a personal email address. The Mail on Sunday ran a story in which the family were pictured on holiday in Dubai shortly after Lyons was released. One photo included Lyons with his teenage daughter, counsel said.
Efforts were also made to contact the older children through Facebook. The 19-year-old daughter had been emailed by a journalist who appeared to show empathy as a ruse to gain her confidence.
The younger daughter, now 16, said a local man followed her on the bus and home from school, and one day drove very fast very close to her as she was about to get into her mother’s car in what she described as a very scary incident.Ten days after his release from prison, their father had to leave home to live and work in England, such was the attention, and because he nearly had a serious car accident due to the harassment, counsel said.
Lyons was subject to the sex offenders register in the UK and had to withdraw from his aviation business. His conviction also had a severe effect on the business, which suffered a significant reputational loss. He could not even perform a back-office role and had been excluded from a golf club.
Caroline Biggs SC, for the DPP, accepted undue media attention could be a mitigating factor and said, while an offender had to be held up for public criticism, anything exceeding that would be punitive.
The court had to take into account the seriousness and aggravating factors of this case including the time of night the offence occurred and the level of violence involved.