The Court of Criminal Appeal has found that the six-month custodial sentence imposed on aviation broker Anthony Lyons for a violent sexual assault was “unduly lenient”.
Presiding judge Mr Justice John Murray yesterday said the court had decided to allow the appeal brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions against the sentence of six years, with 5½ years suspended, imposed on Lyons by Judge Desmond Hogan in July 2012.
“The court has reached its decision on the grounds that the mitigating grounds tendered, taken globally, could not in principle justify the suspension of all but six months of the custodial sentence, having regard to the gravity of the offence,” Mr Justice Murray said.
He said the three-judge court would give its reasons for the judgment at a later date.
Mr Justice Murray said the court had taken into account that both parties would be making submissions on sentence, and would possibly hear the matter in the Four Courts next week.
Lyons was accompanied by family members at the court hearing. Members of the victim’s family were also present.
Lyons (52), from Griffith Avenue, Dublin, had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the sexual assault of the then 27-year-old victim.
In delivering sentence, Judge Hogan said he had “no doubt” that it was a serious offence which had involved “violence of a seriously frightening nature”.
Lyons initially denied the offence. Several months later he handed a statement to gardaí 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.
He was ordered by Judge Hogan to pay his victim €75,000 in compensation.
Priority listing
Lyons was released from prison in December 2012 and the case was given a priority listing by the Court of Criminal Appeal in June of this year.
Counsel for the State Caroline Biggs SC told the court yesterday that the sentence imposed on Lyons was unduly lenient, amounted to an “error in principle” and was a “substantial departure from the norm”.
In sentencing Lyons to a six-month custodial term, Ms Biggs submitted the trial judge failed to have sufficient regard to the gravity of the offence, the impact it had on the victim and on society, and fundamentally ignored the principles of personal and general deterrence.
Counsel argued that Judge Hogan placed undue weight and a “disproportionate reliance” on what he deemed to be the mitigating factors in the case, in particular the compensation order and the contrite manner in which he believed Lyons met the case.
Ms Biggs submitted that, in relying on the compensation order, Judge Hogan in effect deemed it as a way in which to deal with the seriousness of the offence. She argued the order was not an appropriate way to mark the seriousness of the offence given the nature of the sexual assault and the level of violence involved.
With reference to contrition, Ms Biggs said this "offered very little mitigation" in the context of Lyons's plea of not guilty, his initial denial of responsibility and his later suggestion that he did not have necessary "mens rea" – or guilty mind – to commit the offence.
Patrick Gageby SC, for Lyons, said that although the compensation matter “loomed large” in the applicant’s submissions, the legal position was “relatively simple”.
He said jurisprudence established that the payment of compensation was a factor that can be considered, was not an irrelevant factor, and that was “as far as it goes”.
Mr Gageby told the court that victim was canvassed with regard to compensation and said in her view the case should not be disposed of by way of a compensation order.
He said that was the “be all and end all” of the compensation aspect of the case and there “simply isn’t evidence” that the weight applied to the compensation was so much that it was “out of kilter”.
Nature of the offence
Mr Gageby said the DPP seemed to be saying that the nature of the offence may trump "all of the many mitigating factors".
Mr Justice Murray told Mr Gageby that the sentence imposed was “rather a light sentence” and the court would have to look at the mitigating factors to see if they justified that degree of leniency or whether it amounted to “undue leniency”.
“My client was a most unlikely candidate for ever committing an offence like this,” Mr Gageby said, adding that Lyons had never been in trouble of “any kind”, had committed a criminal offence “just touching his 50th year”, and was happily married, hard-working and “incredibly well thought of”.
“It was a most unusual first offence, in my submission his last offence,” Mr Gageby told the court.
Mr Justice Murray told Mr Gageby that whether it was Lyons’s first offence or not, “it didn’t make much difference to her in the end”, referring to the victim.