Six month sentence for wealthy sex offender outrages family and rape crisis group

Anthony Lyons' “low” sentence viewed as a case of “money talks”

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KATE HICKEY,

IrishCentral Editor

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Six-month sentence and large fine for Anthony Lyons. Charges with violent sexual attack

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There is outrage in women’s rights groups after Dubliner Anthony Lyons (51) was sentenced  to six years in prison, with five-and-a-half years of his sentence suspended.

He also was fined  €75,000 ($93,300) to be paid in compensation to the victim of his attack, a woman he viciously attacked after following her in a Dublin suburb.

The Dublin-based owner of an aviation leasing company blamed his cholesterol medication for causing the sexual attack on the woman two years ago. The prosecution immediately rejected this defense.
 
On 3rd October 2010 Lyons came up behind his victim and said, “Are you going to get home safely,” before rugby tackling her into the trees. She tried to scream but he told her to be quiet and held his hand over her throat and mouth while he sexually assaulted her.

She managed to hit him in the head with her cell phone before dialing 999 (911). A passerby shouted at Lyons and he ran away. The victim identified Lyons from a police car, just 100 meters from his home.

Rape Crisis groups and the victim’s family have spoken out questioning the fairness of Ireland’s criminal justice system. After his sentence was handed down by Justice Desmond Hogan, the victim’s family said this was a case where “money talks”.

Her aunt Susan spoke on Joe Duffy’s RTE radio program “Liveline” after the proceedings. She said her niece was “so upset” and said the idea of Lyons receiving a fine instead of a harsher prison sentence had “horrified” her family.

She said, “We thought he was going to prison for six years…She doesn’t want money. She never did.”

Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre chief executive, had a mixed reaction to the result.

She told TheJournal.ie “I would call the sentence unusual. The six years is not lenient – it is indicative of the seriousness of the crime. But getting him to pay the compensation and suspend the jail time questions the fairness of the system because a resourced person can avoid a custodial sentence by the provision of a large sum of money.”

The Rape Crisis Network of Ireland criticized the six-month jail sentence saying it was “very low”.

They told RTE that it was difficult not to reach the conclusion that if Lyons had been a less wealthy man his custodial sentence would have been long.

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