Court set to hear appeal against businessman's sexual assault sentence
The Court of Criminal Appeal is due to hear further submissions today in an appeal by the DPP against what it says is the unduly lenient sentence imposed on a businessman for a violent sexual assault.
Anthony Lyons (aged 53) from Griffith Avenue in Dublin received a six-year sentence with five-and-a-half years suspended for attacking a 27-year-old woman on a North Dublin street at night.
Last November the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that the sentence was too lenient.
However, before the court got around to deciding a new sentence, one of the judges hearing the case fell ill and the DPP's appeal had to start again.
Lyons – who owned an aircraft leasing company - was convicted in the Circuit Court of sexually assaulting a woman in Dublin in the early hours of October 3, 2010.
He was jailed and ordered to pay his victim €75,000 compensation.
The DPP says the penalty does not match the gravity of the offence nor does it reflect its effect on the victim and society.
Anthony Lyons' legal team say that he has suffered the consequences of his conviction in that he is now notorious and will never be forgotten.
